The Post-Beer, Post-XO Drinking Hype in China




Wondering what gift to give to your Chinese friends in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong? Here is a suggestion that might surprise you -- a bottle of good red wine.

The Chinese have already earned the reputation as the biggest consumers of XO cognac in the world. This title came as a result of the cultural habit of "bottoms up" (gan bei: literally, "dry glass") at banquets -- especially business-related ones, where hosts proudly offer their guests the most expensive alcohol. However, in the past two years in Taiwan, drinking red wine (putao jiu -- literally: "grape wine"; wine made from grapes) has become more and more popular. Wine-tasting shops sprang up in upscale residential areas, and red wine has replaced XO brandy as the new "table wine" being "ganbei-ed" at banquets. By the way, Taiwan is the fourth largest overseas market for American wine.

In 1997, red wine also caught the fancy of Mainlanders. According to the Chinese Customs' statistics, whiskey made up 80% of all imported alcohol in 1995, but dropped to a mere 3% in 1997, while red wine rose to 80% in the same year. The majority of these imported red wine are from Spain and Chile, with French and Australian brands following behind. (Attention! Californian wine makers! Where is your presence in China?) The increase was partly due to the fact that the Chinese government tried to curtail the consumption of hard liquor by encouraging the production of fruit wine, and partly because the government loosened up its control over imported beer and wine.

But of course the irresistible power of fad is the real reason behind all this. Interestingly, the route these cultural trends have taken in modern Chinese history is through large southern coastal cities, such as Guangzhou, where influence from the fashionable Hong Kong penetrates easily. The next stop was Shanghai. Just in 1996, red wine sale in Shanghai was 20% of total wine sales, and imported red wine took up 80% of the red wine market in that city.

Today, people in Beijing have also fallen under the spell of red wine. Compared to a bottle of XO cognac, which is outrageously expensive for the commoner, red wine is nicely affordable. For about one or two hundred RMB, anyone can enjoy a bottle of genuine French wine and all the romantic European associations attached to it. However, every imported idea inevitably undergoes Sinofication. By mixing red wine with Sprite and ice, the Beijing people have already invented their own way of "bottom-upping" dry red wine. Who knows? Someday the French might find this way of drinking trendy too.



-- J. Tsao