Comments on: Unbottled: A foreign reporter misrepresents China’s wine industry https://www.grapewallofchina.com/2008/10/31/unbottled-a-foreign-reporter-misrepresents-chinas-wine-industry/ Wine and the World's Biggest Market Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:04:52 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: admin https://www.grapewallofchina.com/2008/10/31/unbottled-a-foreign-reporter-misrepresents-chinas-wine-industry/#comment-3566 Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:04:52 +0000 http://www.grapewallofchina.com/?p=639#comment-3566 @ Alberto,

Thanks for the statistics!

@ Garry,

What bothers me is not so much the blog post, but that publications such as Wine Business International picked it up without providing any context for readers.

Here’s a question: If these people really believe Chinese are bottling foreign “garbage” wine, where is their outrage at the countries that are sending it here?

Cheers, Boyce

]]> By: Garry https://www.grapewallofchina.com/2008/10/31/unbottled-a-foreign-reporter-misrepresents-chinas-wine-industry/#comment-3559 Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:35:30 +0000 http://www.grapewallofchina.com/?p=639#comment-3559 is unfair and misleading. Wine is not like a tap that wine makers can turn on and off at will. Each vineyard produces different volumes each year, due to many variable factors, including weather, and as such, in good years, a region may produce higher volumes, or alternatively lesser in bad years. A country like Spain has recently had (generally) a few successive good vintages, and as such, has a large volume of unsold wine in storage. What to do? A large amount of this will be exported as bulk wine, with the prducers having to accept a lower price than they may have liked. Market forces dictating that the lower price is not necessarily quality related, rather oversupply. The statement, ".. were manufactured during bad years for wineries.", is often not the case. The statement about Chinese drinkers having too drink inferior wine is a big generalisation. Nobody is forcing anybody, with a large array of local and international options open to all winedrinkers, at least in the larger cities. If we are talking about inaccessability due to price, then it is difficult to get an imorted bottled wine onto the shelf in China, to retail under 50 RMB, (due to cost of production, taxes, logistics), so he should really should be thankful that China has access to cheap bulk wine. How palatable would the the 10-50RMB Chinese wines without it? Another side issue, as with many products, one of the problems with protectionist economic polocies is that the local protected products dont feel as much pressure from internationals to improve their quality.]]> To describe bulk wine as ‘junk wines, so called ‘garbage-rank imported wine,’ is unfair and misleading.
Wine is not like a tap that wine makers can turn on and off at will. Each vineyard produces different volumes each year, due to many variable factors, including weather, and as such, in good years, a region may produce higher volumes, or alternatively lesser in bad years. A country like Spain has recently had (generally) a few successive good vintages, and as such, has a large volume of unsold wine in storage. What to do? A large amount of this will be exported as bulk wine, with the prducers having to accept a lower price than they may have liked. Market forces dictating that the lower price is not necessarily quality related, rather oversupply. The statement, “.. were manufactured during bad years for wineries.”, is often not the case.

The statement about Chinese drinkers having too drink inferior wine is a big generalisation. Nobody is forcing anybody, with a large array of local and international options open to all winedrinkers, at least in the larger cities. If we are talking about inaccessability due to price, then it is difficult to get an imorted bottled wine onto the shelf in China, to retail under 50 RMB, (due to cost of production, taxes, logistics), so he should really should be thankful that China has access to cheap bulk wine. How palatable would the the 10-50RMB Chinese wines without it? Another side issue, as with many products, one of the problems with protectionist economic polocies is that the local protected products dont feel as much pressure from internationals to improve their quality.

]]> By: Alberto Fernandez https://www.grapewallofchina.com/2008/10/31/unbottled-a-foreign-reporter-misrepresents-chinas-wine-industry/#comment-3298 Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:49:09 +0000 http://www.grapewallofchina.com/?p=639#comment-3298 Ma Huiqin is right, Chinese output is around 500,000 hectolitres according to official statistics in China while imports of bulk wine recorded by China Customs reached 105,000 hl in 2007 at an average of $0,56/litre (not $0,40 as stated by Tim). With these official figures maximum bulk wine inside a bottle of Chinese wine can’t be higher than 20%…

If anybody wants them I can send them out!

Alberto Fernandez
General Manager – TORRES CHINA

]]> By: admin https://www.grapewallofchina.com/2008/10/31/unbottled-a-foreign-reporter-misrepresents-chinas-wine-industry/#comment-3270 Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:52:14 +0000 http://www.grapewallofchina.com/?p=639#comment-3270 t… Ma has been in China’s wine sector for over a decade as a molecular biologist and researches grape vines, teaches wine appreciation classes to university students, knows and visits people in all China’s wine regions, has done exchanges with wine operations on five continents, and - importantly - identified herself in responding to Johnson's article. Johnson passed on the claims of an anonymous source he describes as a “heartsick” chairman -- "heartsick"? how does he know? I know and like both - in fact, the last time I saw them together was at a wine conference Ma organized August 2007 in Beijing. But I give credence to an industry specialist who identifies herself, rather than an anonymous source that makes claims that don’t resonate. Let me make it clear - and I state this because China issues too often come down to zealots who either fiercely attack or defend the place. No one denies the wine industry has problems, that bulk wine is used, or that some companies have misrepresented vintages. But while I do agree with some of what Johnson writes, the key points are inflammatory and based on false claims and exaggerated numbers, and do not help the situation. Even worse is that reputable wine sites around the world pick up such posts at face value, thus necessitating the response made by Ma. Cheers, Boyce]]> Adam,

I will add, because Ma Huiqin didn’t…

Ma has been in China’s wine sector for over a decade as a molecular biologist and researches grape vines, teaches wine appreciation classes to university students, knows and visits people in all China’s wine regions, has done exchanges with wine operations on five continents, and – importantly – identified herself in responding to Johnson’s article.

Johnson passed on the claims of an anonymous source he describes as a “heartsick” chairman — “heartsick”? how does he know?

I know and like both – in fact, the last time I saw them together was at a wine conference Ma organized August 2007 in Beijing. But I give credence to an industry specialist who identifies herself, rather than an anonymous source that makes claims that don’t resonate.

Let me make it clear – and I state this because China issues too often come down to zealots who either fiercely attack or defend the place. No one denies the wine industry has problems, that bulk wine is used, or that some companies have misrepresented vintages. But while I do agree with some of what Johnson writes, the key points are inflammatory and based on false claims and exaggerated numbers, and do not help the situation. Even worse is that reputable wine sites around the world pick up such posts at face value, thus necessitating the response made by Ma.

Cheers, Boyce

]]> By: Ma Huiqin https://www.grapewallofchina.com/2008/10/31/unbottled-a-foreign-reporter-misrepresents-chinas-wine-industry/#comment-3269 Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:20:48 +0000 http://www.grapewallofchina.com/?p=639#comment-3269 In terms of sources, for my response, I checked the data from National Bureau of Statistics, called the director of the China Alcoholic Drink Industry Association, the chief viticulturist of Dynasty, The wine maker of Chateau Junding, the production manager of Mougao, the director of Ningxia wine association and independent journalist Jim Sun in Shandong among others, to double check the acreage and production of grape wines in different provinces and their data on the volume of the imported bulk wine. I think that using official statistics and these sources gets up close to a reliable number.
I would add that I am an independent researcher, I do not and have never taken research money from any of the big wineries, such as Great Wall, Changyu, or Dynasty.

]]> By: Adam https://www.grapewallofchina.com/2008/10/31/unbottled-a-foreign-reporter-misrepresents-chinas-wine-industry/#comment-3264 Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:43:27 +0000 http://www.grapewallofchina.com/?p=639#comment-3264 Your post suffers from exactly the same faults that you attribute to the Tim Johnson article – where are your citations and sources? One could make the exact same argument against your writing. “The statistical and anecdotal evidence in this paragraph is substandard.” I would submit that the same sentence applies to your entire posting. Your “article” sounds like the common response in China to someone who has written something less than flattering about anything that has to do with China.

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