This is a result of great importance for the global balance of the wine sector because the Far East (the entire Asian area including Japan and Korea) is now closely following North America in the USA and Canada as the main market for wine consumption in the world .
Returning to the French “monopoly” of wine in China according to Wine Monitor data, the market share of Paris has now dropped below 30% against 43% ten years ago and after breaking into some break even the 50% wall .
For this reason the Australian overflow marks in some way the end of an era and of a long dominance that began over 30 years ago when France, also thanks to the willingness of its chains of large retailers, landed en masse with its wines and products of gastronomy made in France on a market that is still completely self-sufficient in terms of food products (and on which wine was an almost unknown product).
The downfall of French wines by Australian labels is the result of several factors. On the one hand, the progressive decline in purchases of wine from abroad by the Chinese which, after the less 2% recorded at the end of 2018 in the first part of 2019, reported a new decline of 14% in value.
The most penalized in this context were the French, who lost 31.5% of their turnover. Spaniards and Italians with a reduction in turnover of 16.9% and 12.5% ​​respectively have limited the damage while instead Australians and Chileans (thanks to more favorable tariff regimes that are reflected in lower sales prices) have seen its sales grew by 4.8% and 8.4% respectively.
The decline in Chinese imports of French wines – according to Wine Monitor data – concerned still bottled wines – which account for 95% of the total by volume – decreased to a value of almost 34%, while it spared sparkling wines (mainly Champagne) that on the contrary have grown by over 24%.