China Wine Press: Virginia wine, Hunter Valley vineyards, fakes, YesMyWine

Excerpts from online coverage of the China wine scene…

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(Not expecting to see this in my local corner store any time soon.)

China will soon import wine from Virginia, says Scott Wise of CBS 6 in Richmond:

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell announced an agreement Tuesday that would see Virginia wine exported to China. Under the agreement wine from Virginia’s Barboursville Vineyard would be imported into China by the Tianjin Tewoo Group.

Full story here.

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(Looks like China is getting the hang of this contracting out thing)

Ken McGregor of Adelaide Now reports on a rather unusual counterfeit case involving Australia and China. The cheat sheet goes like this (I think): A Chinese wine agent informed an Australian winery that its labels were being faked by another Australian winery on behalf of another Chinese wine agent:

Adelaide Hills winemaker Danniel Amadio, of Amadio Wines, said Riverland winery Salena Estate had been undercutting his profits by selling the similarly labelled wine for half the price on the international export market.

Mr Amadio said he was amazed when first shown the wine by one of his selling agents in China.

“I have heard of it happening to others and I was not that surprised when I first found out, but when I realised it was being done by another South Australian company I was shocked,” he said.

Full story here.

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(A Chinese company paid more than the asking price. Um, why?)

Fran Thompson of the Newcastle Herald reports a second vineyard in the Hunter Valley  has been sold to a Chinese investor:

Windsor’s Edge, at Lovedale, was sold for an undisclosed sum that was more than the asking price of $2.6 million, said Jurds Real Estate director Cain Beckett who negotiated the sale.

Mr Beckett also sold the Golden Grape, on Oakey Creek Road, Pokolbin, about two weeks ago to Chinese company Winston Wines for $2.8 million.

Full story here.

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(With some left over for sponsoring local wine blogs? Hint, hint)

Tech Node says that China online wine seller YesMyWine says it has raised USD53 million in capital:

YesMyWine, a Shanghai based B2C membership site focusing on wines, has just announced raising US$40 miilion in a Series C financing led by Chengwei Capital. The vertical had raised over US$53 million since its launch in late 2008, US$3 million for the Series A by DCM and US$10 million for Series B led by Mandra Capital.

The money is said to be going to improve warehouses, logistics and the online shopping system.

Full story here.

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