Wang Yuanyuan, Jane Lai
AS a free vino-soaked Wine and Dine Festival in Hong Kong drew tens of thousands of visitors from Thursday to Sunday, its Bordeaux wine booth, a highlight of the four-day event, struggled to keep the increasingly inebriated queues under control.
The popularity of Bordeaux wine could be attributed to its good quality, said Pierre Goguet, vice president of the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCI Bordeaux).
The Bordeaux wine booth was one of 230 food and wine booths showcasing wines from 16 countries at the festival held at the West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade.
The annual event, this being only the second, has already been dubbed one of the world s top 10 international food and wine fairs by ForbesTraveler.com. Organized by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the festival was the launch event for Hong Kong s first ever Wine and Dine Month that runs through November.
Bordeaux wine has seen sales in Hong Kong more than triple in the past 10 years, while sales of global wine in Hong Kong doubled.
But the wine market in Hong Kong has matured and CCI Bordeaux is seeking opportunities to expand its Chinese market.
According to Goguet, Bordeaux wine first appeared in the Chinese market many years ago, but Bordeaux wine producers and dealers did not see the great potential of the Chinese wine market until they attended a Hong Kong wine expo five years ago.
In the United States and Europe, the average annual consumption of wine is more than 10 liters per person, while in China it s only about 1 liter. There is great potential there, Goguet said.
Last year alone, CCI Bordeaux sold 7 million bottles of Bordeaux wine on the Chinese mainland, double the figure sold in 2008. The number accounted for 20 percent of its global sales last year, surpassing that sold in Japan and the United States. Most of the wine was sold in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, Goguet said.
As average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world, CCI Bordeaux has a different marketing strategy for the Chinese market.
A lot of Hong Kong people have considerable understanding of wine and they like to collect expensive wines, but most residents on the Chinese mainland have just started to enjoy wine, so we would try to offer medium-class wines at reasonable prices to first attract more wine enthusiasts, Goguet said.
Apart from wine, the Bordeaux region also prides itself on its cuisine, which includes delicacies such as goose liver, caviar and coldcuts, Goguet said, adding that the chamber was trying to promote the cuisine all over the world.
There is already a cooking school in Hong Kong for Chinese and French chefs to exchange their skills and ideas, he said.
