Again, I’ve been a bit lax with updating this. Basically, because I’ve been too busy for the past couple of months. This is the first week in a while that I had a bit less work to do, so I thought I may as well feed the blog. I was on the phone to my parents yesterday (they’re still under coronavirus lockdown in Melbourne) when I got a call from the Australian Financial Review’s China correspondent to do some quick photography on the recent call by Chinese authorities into Australian wine businesses dumping product in China.
The original idea was to go to a supermarket or a small shop that stocks Australian wine, but I remembered that there’s a wine shop near to where I live that’s run by a Chinese-Australian. It’s called Cellar Door Wines and every bottle in their shop comes from Australia.
It was around noon and it took me five minutes to get there on my bike. Fortunately, they were open so I chatted with the owner, Andy, for a little while and browsed their stock while I waited for the correspondent and news assistant to arrive.
I don’t often buy Australian wine in Shanghai as it’s generally well over double the price I would pay for it back in Melbourne. For instance, a Yulumba ‘Y Series’, which would be AU$12 back in Australia is about three times that here. Cellar Door Wines mostly sells wines from smaller producers and their bottles are fairly pricey. It’s much easier to buy good wine at a lower price in China from Chile, Italy, France, Spain or South Africa, but despite this, China is Australian wine’s chief export market and they out-profit any other wine making country here.
However, one thing I’ve noticed is Rawson’s Retreat selling for around $10 or $12 along with Hardy’s and Lindeman’s bottom shelf bottles. These are still pretty good value here and Rawson’s Retreat, in particular is quite popular, just going on what people bring to dinner parties and picnics or post on Instagram when they show what they’re cooking at home. Apparently Treasury Wines, Australia’s largest wine company has been demanding that wine buyers in China also take on orders of cheaper brands like Rawson’s Retreat even if they are wanting to buy top shelf wines like Penfold’s Grange Hermitage. This was first reported in the Australian Financial Review in 2018. It would explain why entry level Australian wine can be found so cheaply here, compared to eight years ago when I first arrived in Shanghai. Back then I was shocked to see relatively cheap brands Koonunga Hill or Jacob’s Creek selling for well over $30 in convenience stores.
I can’t say the above information has been meticulously researched on my part and the fact remains that while some Australian labels are competitive with other cheap imports, on the whole, Australian wine is some of the most expensive you can find here. According to Andy at Cellar Door Wines, the US/China trade war hammered the US wine industry in terms of their exports to China. US wine been slapped with more than 80% tax. There’s currently no tax on Australian wine in China
The timing of China’s enquiry into wine dumping is interesting. Personally, I think it’s part of an extended slap down from China for Australia engaging in megaphone diplomacy on a number of issues. Australia-China relations continue to deteriorate and I can’t see them getting better any time soon.
Anyway, here’s a portrait of Andy with a glass of ‘Thick As Thieves Left Field Blend’. I used a little bit of off camera fill flash on this. After the shoot we shared a bottle of a light rose coloured wine he had made with his friend at a winery up in Shangri-La, Yunnan Province. It was crown sealed, bottled with quite a bit of sediment in the pet-nat (pétillant naturel) method and was a great drink on hot summer’s day.
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