Anglo-Australian-Mandarin Chinese Wine Lexicon: Opening of the lines of wine communications between Australia and China

Faced with climate change, the global financial crisis and a robust Australian dollar, an emerging market of young, affluent Chinese consumers desiring fine wines are hypothesised as a saviour for our wine industry.¹  In 2010, Australia's wine exports to China increased by 36%, overtaking the growth of the more traditional British, US and Canadian markets.²  A more in-depth understanding of this market will provide our industry with strategies to grow exports to China and ‘out-compete' others, e.g. the French who are already translating their renowned wine magazines into Chinese.³ 

This project will produce an Australian English-Chinese wine lexicon to feed the vast number of Chinese wine enthusiasts seeking knowledge, plus assist industry in communicating with Chinese growers, winemakers, retailers and consumers to ameliorate the substantial cultural, custom and language differences. This tool will facilitate the route to the China market for the one quarter of the Australian wine industry that exports to them. Additionally, as the lexicon covers topics that overarches the university's three core disciplines in wine teaching and research, it will improve our teaching/research training of our growing undergraduate/postgraduate Chinese student cohorts. This tool will support the Australian wine industry with intelligence to overtake other competitors within this enormous growth opportunity. The research relates to the Wine2030 objectives by providing information to help sustain and grow new markets and responding to competition within them.

1.  Grape Wall of China Cracks, Sarah White and John Garnaut, Sydney Morning Herald, 23/1/2011, accessed 24/1/2011.

2.  2010 December Wine Export Approval Report Excerpt, updated 11 January 2011, Wine Australia website, accessed 1 February 2011.

3.  Dragon's Eye hits the spot as world discovers Chinese wines, Martin Hickman and Clifford Coonan, The Independent, 24/1/2011.

Background

In December 2010, Australian wine exports were valued at A$2.10 billion with a total export volume of 781 million litres.⁴  China was among the top five Australian export markets, which together accounted for 80% of the total value of Australian exports. The export volume to China was 55 million litres, up an impressive 36% from 2009. Earlier studies showed that the Chinese are more likely to use extrinsic cues to evaluate wine quality and that country of origin is the most important factor when purchasing wine,^5,6  a fact the French have been exploiting.

If Australia is to remain competitive with countries such as France (⁷ Table 1), we need to facilitate the route to market of Australian premium quality wine to prevent the slide of value per litre received. We believe the resource generated from this project complements the strategy to educate the Chinese market about high quality Australian wines that rank with the best in the world. However, we need to be able to bridge the cultural and language gaps between the Australian wine industry and the Chinese market. Industry is wholeheartedly behind an English-Chinese wine lexicon and provided impetus for this application. If we can rapidly and accurately convey the idioms of the technical language of wine to the Chinese, it will provide immense benefit to Australian companies conducting business there. For the university, it will be an invaluable tool for teaching our 50 plus and growing Chinese wine student cohort.

4.  2010 December Wine Export Approval Report Excerpt, updated 11 January 2011, Wine Australia website, accessed 1 February 2011.

5.  Balestrini, P. and Gamble, P. (2006) Country-of-origin effects on Chinese wine consumers, British Food Journal, 108(5): 396-412.

6.  Hu, X., Li, L., Xie, C. and Zhou, J. (2008) The effects of country-of-origin on Chinese consumers' wine purchasing behaviour, Journal of Technology Management in China, 3(3): 292-306.

7.  International Wine and Spirits Research (2010), The IWSR Global Wine Handbook 2009, IWSR: UK.

Research Capability and Experience

The team possesses: the expertise essential to write the lexicon's contents, the significant industry contacts/experience necessary for the consultation required to ensure the tool is useful for industry, and strong links with the North West A&F University in China to conduct the cultural/language validation. Project Supervisor Dr Susan Bastian is a winemaker with 10 years research and teaching experience, widely published in viticultural, wine, sensory and consumer science. Dr Elton Li, a native speaker of Chinese, has been teaching and researching in wine marketing for 13 years encompassing ecommerce and internet marketing for wineries. Mr Tim James, wine industry consultant, was previously managing director of Wirra Wirra and spent 24 years at Hardy's. He is currently on the SAWIC board and has considerable experience with China. Dr Cassandra Collins is a qualified viticulturalist and grapevine researcher and has recently joined the University of Adelaide as a lecturer in viticulture. Associate Professor Johan Bruwer brings 20 years of research experience culminating in a multitude of research publications and specialist expertise in wine consumer behaviour, the retail environment and wine industry competitiveness issues. He possesses deep insights of the international wine market environment, including China. Mr Trent Johnson has worked with Drs Bastian and Bruwer on many externally funded research projects. With a diverse range of skills including working with groups comprised of members with diverse nationalities and a strong understanding of oenological and marketing terminology plus questionnaire development skills, he is highly complementary to the team.