Utrans Wines expands and builds wine museum

Utrans Wines are starting work on a wine museum to sit alongside its head office in Xiamen in southeastern China.

It is hoped the new facility will be finished at the beginning of 2011 and will be the first of several wine centres designed to educate Chinese consumers.

Utrans Wines is part of Utrans Supply Chain Management, which is one of China’s largest importers and distributors of raw materials.

The company is growing its wine business at a rapid rate and increased its vinous imports from under 50 containers in 2009 to 200 by October this year, while it plans to bring in 400 containers of wine to mainland China during 2011.

A spokesperson from Utrans explained that the Chinese market is highly polarised, with a consumer either looking for very cheap fruity red wines, or extremely expensive Bordeaux, although they admitted that the demand for mid-priced products is starting to develop. “It will be a very big market and it is our job to educate consumers,” they said.

Of the 200 containers the company brought into China during this year, over 70% of the wine was from France, totalling 2.5 million bottles, of which just under 1m were from Bordeaux.

Growth areas outside France for Utrans are wines from Spain and Australia as well as Chile.

As for the full break-down of Utrans wine imports by country in 2010, see the list below:

Country         Bottles

France:         2,500,000
Spain:           625,000
Chile:            500,000
Australia:       280,000
Italy:               240,000
Germany:       240,000
South Africa:  240,000
US:                 80,000
New Zealand: 12,000

Patrick Schmitt, 18.11.2010