Once upon a time in Beijing, sommelier Philip Osenton held 51 wine glasses in one hand. It would have set a Guinness world record had we followed the verification rules. Instead, it ranks as one of many fun happenings at what was once Beijing’s top wine festival.
The annual Hilton Food & Wine Experience, first held in 1997, was a “must go” event when I moved to Beijing.
At its peak, this annual boozy bash covered two hotel floors, including the ballroom, bar, restaurants and hallways, with over 1000 wines, plus breakout sessions and tastings in the event rooms.
I missed the early years, when the likes of Tim Hanni and Marimar Torres featured, but did meet top critics, producers and personalities at those festivals I did join. Some trade people timed their trips to Beijing to attend.
And this year? The 27th annual Hilton Food & Wine Experience was held last Saturday. For the first time, it was in the hotel lobby, with just ten wine distributors spread out and the lack of consumers especially notable given no entry free–see photos below.
What happened to this event between then and now? There are both macro and micro issues at play that matter today.
Rise and Fall
Hilton Beijing’s trajectory mirrors what has generally happened across the country’s wine scene.
When I first started attending in the late-2000s, the future for wine in China looked bright, with full enjoyment of the Bordeaux import boom and the rise of local wines to come.
From that time to 2012 or 2013, there were also other sizeable wine events in Beijing. Torres China‘s Taste of Nations featured wines from a dozen countries. Palette Vino held tastings with a free flow of 100 wines. And so on.
But as I’ve often noted, the past dozen years have not been kind to wine imports or local production, with big drops for both. As for those distributors, Palette Vino is long gone while Torres is now under Waijiu. Many others from those days have closed, downsized or merged with other entities.
Beijing vs Shanghai
On top of this, the wine scene in Beijing underscores that China should be viewed as many diverse markets.
Take the most obvious contrast: Shanghai. In a three-week period this month, that city has the two-day CRUSH festival with 1000-plus wines, the Holavino Orange Wine Fair with 150 wines from 10 nations and 100% Champagne China as well as the annual Terroir Symposium, ProWine Shanghai and the China International Import Expo.
While Beijing has nothing close to such wine lineup, it still has fans of the grape. I know plenty of people who indulge at restaurants, with each one bringing a bottle. We have some decent wine bars in town. And for the wealthy, there are private clubs where pricy labels are consumed. But we lack the kind of festivals of a Shanghai, although when they are held—like a major orange wine festival two years ago: see below—they have been well attended.
Momentum Shift
In any case, I think anyone going to Hilton’s festivals back in the day sensed a momentum shift. My WeChat messages reflected that.
2014: “Have heard very little buzz about this year’s Hilton Wine Fair. Just met a wine distributor who didn’t even know it was happening.”
2015: “What’s happening with the Hilton wine fair? It’s this Saturday, with a reported 25 distributors, and should be good value as usual, but these guys could take a page from the craft beer festival marketing book when it comes to promoting this event.”
2016: “The recent low turnouts fly in the face of this [fair’s] legacy and of China’s rapidly growing market, one where consumers are experimenting more than ever with wine and where writers, educators, consultants and producers are flooding into the country. If anything, Food & Wine should be scaling new heights, particularly when one considers the strong attendance at the city’s beer festivals, food fairs and other such events.”
(Shortly before the 2015 event, a Hilton employee messaged me, saying they heard I was interested in wine. That is a serious lack of institutional knowledge given I had partnered with Hilton for years to give away festival tickets and stays in the presidential suite; had organized a Chinese wine contest and that glass-holding spectacle by Osenton; had even talked to management that summer about the fair.)
Deeper Issues
I saw reasons for the decline back then that resound today.
First, people are such a crucial factor and key wine festival supporters in management, such as Chris Roberts, Simon Amos and Emile Otte, had moved on in fairly quick succession. The word “passion” is overused but, in this case, a few people with it are necessary to build and maintain momentum.
Second, these supporters had given the Hilton a reputation for fun that went far beyond the festival and kept the hotel in consumers’ minds. They had an annual pancake race featuring contestants, skillet in hand, racing through an obstacle course in the lobby. A rodeo with a mechanical bull. Belly dancing and pole dancing competitions. An annual Christmas tree lighting party, complete with a Christmas train snaking through the lobby. And more. With fewer such events, the hotel lost some connection to consumers, and consumers to the wine festival.
Third, in some years, festival promotion relied heavily on one outside source—a radio station one time, a lifestyle magazine another—to generate most of the buzz. In an age where social media channels were already potent and crowded, far more outreach was needed. I found this especially given some wine importers / distributors can be reluctant to promote such events—I have heard some ask: Why invite our customers to where they might enjoy wines from someone else?)
Ironically, those same distributors held the key to attendance in their pockets: they received many hundreds of free tickets as part of table sponsorship packages. Free wine was there for the taking for anyone with any connections at all.
Festival v2025
These past few years, the Hilton festival was limited to the ballroom and surrounding hallways. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has anchored the event by supporting a wide range of U.S. wines, whiskies, beers and foods, with the remaining tables filled by individual distributors with wines from elsewhere.
This gave the hotel a low-maintenance way to keep the decades-long “streak” going, even as an obligation to the past, in an increasingly competitive market for quality hotels and for events for craft beer, whisky, coffee and food.
But this year USDA did not participate. And we saw the result on Saturday: ten distributors in the hotel lobby with few attendees.
I had mixed feelings as I walked around. I met nice people and tasted nice wines for free while feeling we had collectively missed an opportunity.
In my ideal world, that twenty-seventh edition would have been spread across two floors, as per tradition, and reflected the current rise of white wines and growing diversity of local wines while paying tribute to the Bordeaux, Barossa and Napa labels that drew many people in earlier years.
And during a time of cautious consumer spending, it would have served as a huge “try before you buy” session so people could find wines they like at minimal risk.
After all, I see many other food and drink festivals in Beijing connecting with consumers, especially craft beer.
Danish brewer Mikkeler’s first festival in Beijing this year drew a good turnout even with tickets at RMB498 / USD70 while the ninth 8×8 festival by local brewer Jing-A—pairing eight Chinese and eight international breweries—charged RMB248 / USD35 for a three-hour session. And there are plenty of other options, from general beer festivals at a low or no charge to more niche gatherings.
Given this, why can’t a city of over 20 million people have some quality wine festivals, too?
One good thing for Hilton Beijing is we don’t yet have a replacement for their once-legendary wine event. But if a comeback is not in the cards, hopefully someone else steps up and flies the banner for wine in this city. And brings back Osenton to officially break that record.
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