China's Wine Imports Increase in Volume and Value in 2017

According to the latest data from China Customs, China’s wine imports seem to have recovered from previous tepid growth with increases seen in bottled, bulk and sparkling wine imports in 2017.

China imported 746 million liters of wine worth about US$2.789 billion, representing a 16.88% increase in volume and a 17.95% increase in value in 2017. The average price was about US$3.74 per liter, slightly up 0.91% from a year earlier, which indicates that common wines are still the mainstay of the domestic market.

China’s Imported Bottled Wine in 2017

2017	Value	Volume	Average price
Total	US$2.55 billion	552 million liters	US$4.63 per liter
Annual growth rate	+16.38%	+14.62%	+1.54%

The volume of imported bottled wine accounted for over 74% of all imported wines and the value was over 91%.

Top 10 bottled wine importing countries:

No.	Country	Value (USD)	Volume (L)	Average price (USD/ L)
1	France	1.05 billion	217 million	4.82
2	Australia	682 million	105 million	6.45
3	Chile	266 million	74 million	3.59
4	Spain	149 million	67 million	2.21
5	Italy	139 million	29 million	4.72
6	USA	75 million	9.63 million	7.85
7	New Zealand	29 million	2.74 million	10.68
8	South Africa	24 million	8.12 million	3.01
9	Portugal	22 million	7.72 million	2.88
10	Argentina	22 million	5.05 million	4.37

France is China’s most important trade partner in terms of imported bottled wine volume and value, taking up around 40% of market share with 217 million liters shipped to China, followed by Australia, Chile, Spain, Italy, the US, New Zealand, South Africa, Portugal and Argentina.

In terms of average price, New Zealand was the highest and Spain was the lowest. As in 2016, the top six bottled wines were the same in origin. The slight changes in the rankings indicate that Chinese consumers are concerned about the quality and authenticity of fine wines from these 10 major countries.

Top 10 regions of imported bottled wines

China’s coastal province Guangdong, remains the country’s biggest consumer of imported bottled wine at US$909 million worth, surpassing Shanghai’s US$735 million, although the latter imported more wines in terms of volume.

The import value of the two provinces combined accounted for more than 64% of the country’s total wine import value.

Other top consumers of imported bottled wines in China are Zhejiang province, Fujian province, Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong province, Jiangsu province, Liaoning province and Sichuan province.

Importation of other Wine Categories

The country imported 181 million liters of bulk wines, representing a year-on-year increase of 25.51%, and its value also climbed by 40.80% to US$159 million compared with last year.

In terms of country of origin, Chile shipped the most of bulk wines to China, which amounted to US$60 million, followed by Australia, Spain, France, South Africa, the US, Italy, Portugal, Canada and Germany. Compared to 2016, the volume of imported bulk wines from Chile declined by 34.71% but the value increased by 4.66%. The top consumer of imported bulk wines in China was Shandong province, followed by Tianjin, Hebei province, Fujian province, Guangdong province, Jiangsu province, Shanghai, Beijing, Xinjiang and Zhejiang province.

In the sparkling wine category, the country imported 13 million liters, valued at US$75.27 million, up 4.57% in volume and 33.03% in value over last year.

In terms of country of origin, France shipped the most sparkling wine to China, which amounted to US$40.38 million, followed by Italy, Spain, Australia, Germany, Chile, Portugal, South Africa, the US and New Zealand. It is worth mentioning that, in terms of value, France is higher than Italy; but for total volume, Italy is significantly higher. This is mainly due to the fact that France tends to export high-quality and high-priced champagne to China. It also indicates Italy exports cost-effective sparkling wines which are more favored by Chinese consumers.

China Non-compliant Imported Wine Data in 2017

According to the monthly non-compliant food data released by China AQSIQ in 2017, altogether 286 batches of wine (over 300,000 g) failed import and returned or destroyed primarily due to:

Unqualified package
Unqualified labeling
Non-compliant certificates
Lack of relevant documentations
Exceeding shelf life/expiration
Poor product quality

Wine is always one of the hottest categories of imported food and the demand for imported wine in China has been stable in recent years. The rising cost of imported wine in 2017 is of great importance to stakeholders. According to customs data, the rate of growth in the value of imported wine is higher than volume growth, whether it is bottled wine, bulk wine or sparkling wine, most likely due to weather conditions and grape yield in regions like Europe.