“All our children will drink top quality Chinese wines. China is the most dynamic wine market and its wines are gradualy gaining in prestige,” said Baudouin Havaux, Chairman of the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles (CMB), on announcing that China would host the next CMB.“A country once famous for tea-drinking, China may soon become one of the world’s largest global wine consumers. And what consumers in the world’s second-largest economy want, is premium quality wine“, he added.
For two consecutive years, in 2016 and 2017, China entered the highest number of samples in the EUR 35 – 50 price range in the Concours Mondial, outnumbering entries by Spain (22), France (14) and Italy (12). In 2017, Chinese entries topped the list in the EUR 50 to 70 price category, together with Spain, and were the undisputed leaders with 11 entries in the 70 EUR plus category. Nearly one quarter of all samples in the higher price categories entered in the Concours Mondial in 2017 were from China. And nearly one third of them were awarded a medal by the judging panel.
The county fared well in all wine categories. In 2017, it ranked 6th for the number of medals, following traditional wine producing countries like Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Chile, and ahead of South Africa and Greece. The number of Grand Gold Medals awarded to Chinese wines increased 3 times from 2016 to 2017. Last year, for the first time, a Chinese wine was included in the prestigious CMB list of Revelations.
How did China manage to pull this feat off? And what are the latest developments in Chinese wine production? Read more…
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