How big is the foreign wine industry in China?

Foreign wine in China no longer makes the headlines. The spotlight is now on much larger trends: foreign wine has been pouring into China, growing sevenfold over the last six years and increasing to 19 percent of the total domestic market. As a result, almost one out of five bottles opened in China is now imported. Translated into numbers, U.S. exports of wine to China were close to 23 million bottles in 2013, up from practically none a decade earlier. French wine is still the main player in this market, where sales totaled US$ 1.15 billion in 2013 and accounted for nearly half of all wine imports. As of April 2014, China is the eight largest export market for Argentinian wines terms of value, up from 18th a few years back; Chile’s wine export to China increased 157 percent in March 2014; Italian wine surprisingly counted for only 6.5 percent of the market in 2013. However, industry insiders have heard through the grapevine that the presence and marketing of Italian wine in China is finally on the rise, aiming at sales worth almost US$10 billion over the next four years.