Australia bottling plant opens up wine route to China

Harbour Bottling, a wine bottling plant to give Australian wine a more direct path into the booming Chinese market has opened in South Australia.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill at the launch of the new Harbour Bottling plant

Situated 4km away from Adelaide’s major shipping port, Harbour Bottling has a 20,000 bottle-a-day capacity and was set up by four Chinese entrepreneurs who wanted to establish a faster route into China for Australia’s non-premium wine.

The plant is closely linked to South Australian wine company Orchid Wine Estate,  which was founded in 2013 and exports about 200 containers of wine per year. About 30% of the wine produced at the winery will be badged as Orchid Wine Estate while about 70% will be sold to Chinese wine companies for their own branding.

Orchid Wine Estate sources grapes from South Australian wine regions including the Barossa Valley, Coonawarra, Limestone Coast, Langhorne Creek and the Riverland which are then made under contract by wineries in those regions.

Harbour Bottling’s managing director, Jason Zhao said Chinese consumers had developed a taste for Australian wines but were now looking for more everyday wines as opposed to the super-premium Barossa Valley brands like Grange and Henschke that made inroads into Asia a decade ago.

“There is a really good reputation in China for Australian wines but the prices not everyone can afford so what we cater for is we give the consumer more choice while still being able to enjoy the quality standard of Australian wine,” he said.

“In China there is a lot of potential to go further, especially for Australian wines.”

The Wine Australia export report released in December showed that the value of Australian wine exports jumped 14% to AUS$2.1 billion in 2015, reaching its highest growth in value since October 2007. The strongest growth was in China, Australia’s third biggest export market behind the United States and United Kingdom, which grew 66% to AUS$370 million.

Zhao said his company’s “one-stop shop” for bottling, labeling, packaging and distribution also helped design ‘New World” style labels for the Chinese brands his company worked with.

“They like our style so they want to make their own brand of products so we help them to create their own brand but they are still labelled as Australian wine so we are still promoting Australian wine rather than just single brands.

“The Chinese consumers can easily identify the wines that come from the New World and the information on the labels is easy for them to understand.”