Fifteen wineries embarqued in the China Tour last May 24th and 30th in Beijing, Tianjin and Qingdao. It was finished with a great success and all the wineries showed their satisfaction with the events and the number of attendees.
Although the wines from France have 40% of the market share and Chilean and Australian wines are also very popular, Spanish wines and particularly La Mancha wines are increasing their popularity and their value for money is more and more appreciated.
In fact, Appellation of Origin La Mancha is one of the most popular Spanish appellations among Chinese consumers, thanks in large part to our Great Ambassador Don Quixote.
La Mancha area is the largest wine area in all of Europe, and it is capable to supply one of the biggest populations as China, characteristic that also impressed managers of supermarket chains. Exports in 2011 will be higher than 2010 figures, (1,300.000 bottles were sold in 2010) and further exports from last two years increased 100%.
In 2011, China will probably be the third biggest importer of bottled wine of DO La Mancha, passing the Netherlands and USA, and only after Germany and United Kingdom.
On May 24th, DO La Mancha participated in the Top Wine Show in Beijing that lasted three days and there was also a Wine Tasting with a large number of attendees.
After this, the wineries visited Tianjin and Qingdao, with 12 and 8 million populations respectively, where the wineries exhibited their wines among an exclusive group of importers and distributors during a food pairing lunch with Chinese food and La Mancha wines.
These activities are in the frame of the Internationalization strategy from the DO La Mancha Governing Body in order to increase the exports in the new markets.
China, with the USA, are focal points in this program and the Governing Body decided to spend a big part of budget to promote their wines in these two countries. In China the program was started last year with a Road Show in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai, the three most important cities in South China.
These Road Shows in China and the United States were accompanied with a communication campaign in wine magazines and a new version of the website in Chinese and English.
