Wine consumption in China: profiling the 21st century Chinese wine consumer

María Carmen García-Cortijo,Yuanbo Li,Juan Sebastián Castillo-Valero,Emiliano C Villanueva

doi:10.1051/ctv/20193402071

Abstract

This article determines the factors that influence Chinese wine consumption and, thus, contribute to define an average Chinese wine consumer profile for the years 2000 to 2014. The article proposes a model that explains the variations in the consumption of wine in China, because of traditional factors of the theory of demand (price of wine, income, and price of a substitute good), and sociodemographic factors (age, gender, marital status, level of education, geographical area, and tourism activities). The article reveals that an increased income, a married marital status, living in an urban area, and tourism activities, significantly and positively contributed to the increase of wine consumption in China. In addition, the article demonstrates that wine is not a substitute of beer in China, and that it is hard to associate an increase of wine consumption with the gender and the educational level of the average Chinese. In contrast, age negatively and significantly influenced the wine consumption in China, meaning that wine consumers are becoming younger.

Highlights

In the Western World, wine is a symbol of culture, history, and even religion
The income variable shows that an increase in economic capacity leads to increased consumption of wine in China, and this is consistent to the work of Huang and Rozelle (1998), Sun (2009), Camillo (2012), Liu et al (2013), International Wine and Spirit Research (2013), and Muhammad et al (2013)
The price of beer has been significant, but with a negative sign, which tells us that the wine, still, is not a real substitute for beer, contrary to the conclusions of Mitry et al (2009) and Wang (2013), which point out that wine is a compelling substitute for beer and spirits in China

Summary

Introduction

Wine and wine culture have been a crucial part of Europe for thousands of years and have been exported to all over the world While this brilliant and long lasting European wine culture is acknowledged, it may not be ignored the wine culture and history of China. Since the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.), when the Vitis vinifera was introduced to China from Central Asia (Wang and Huang, 2009), it has not been hard to find. The beginning of the modern Chinese wine industry was initiated by the establishment of the Changyu Company in 1892 by Zhang Bishi (1841-1916) in the coastal city of Yantai, Shandong (Mitry et al, 2009)

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