The bottles of Great Wall, Changyu and Dragon Seal wine line up like sentries on the shelf behind Cristián López as he sits in his office in Santiago’s gleaming business district. For Mr López, in charge of Asian sales for Chilean group Vi?a Concha y Toro, these are a daily reminder of the fast-changing fashions of Chinese cities half a world away. “Chile and China both start with ‘C- h-’ but they could not be farther away,” he says.
China is the world’s largest market for red wine, which should be enough to put it on the radar of any winemaker. As the business seeks to recover from the Chinese government’s crackdown on corruption and lavish gift-giving, consumers are turning away from expensive French labels to “new world” exporters like Chile, the fifth-largest wine-producing nation and second-largest supplier to China.
For Chile, this is more than a sales opportunity: the hope is that the wine business can wean the country off its dependence on bulk exports like copper and agricultural commodities.