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How the wine industry can stage a comeback in China – using social media
China is drinking far less wine than a few years ago. To turn the tide, the industry must work with Chinese influencers, an insider says
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Ralph JenningsPublished: 11:00am, 29 May 2026China has lost its taste for wine in recent years, with consumption plunging dramatically since the Covid-19 pandemic. But winemakers can recover if they embrace social media and work with Chinese influencers, according to an industry insider.
Wealthy Chinese are still splashing out on fine wine, which has helped to offset a steep drop-off in sales of mass-market tipples and kept foreign vintners coming back to China, said Rodolphe Lameyse, one of the organisers of Vinexpo Asia – a trade event in Hong Kong featuring 1,200 exhibitors from across the wine and spirits industry.
“China is not one market, it’s a complement of several markets,” Lameyse said at the expo, which opened on Tuesday. In a country of 1.4 billion people, even if only the richest 1 per cent are drinking wine, that is still a market of several million people, he pointed out.
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But lower-income consumers are increasingly looking to cut back, according to Lameyse, who is director general and CEO of food and beverages at Comexposium – the French events company that runs the expo.
China emerged as one of the world’s biggest wine markets during the 2010s, but consumption has since shrunk by more than half. Imports plummeted from more than 550 million litres in 2017 to just over 165 million litres in 2024, Chinese customs data showed.AdvertisementA combination of factors has driven the decline, according to Lameyse. Chief among them is the state of the Chinese economy, with the downturn in the real estate market still having a deep effect on many households’ finances.
“The crisis you can see in real estate is really impacting the willingness to spend by the Chinese consumer,” he said. “If you need to do some arbitrage, sometimes you choose products that are cheaper.”
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