Wine lovers develop a thirst for knowledge

'Fun and helpful' course

Beijing resident Tian Tian took part in a course last winter. She sampled more than 10 wines, learned about their origins, along with the basic rules for evaluating them.

Tian, who works for the New Oriental Education and Technology Group in Beijing, said the course was "fun and helpful". In May, she even acted as a "wine reporter" on a company tour to the Two Hands Wines vineyard in the Barossa Valley, South Australia.

Xu Wei, a former wine trader, started offering training on fine wine in 2009, as there were few such services in China at the time.

"When I was a trader, I found that wine could only be well appreciated and promoted when consumers understood it," he said. "So I started offering free training to retailers, but it was frequently declined as they thought this was unnecessary. However, they soon realized that a deep understanding of wine helps with their business."

Xu's company, Xiaopi Wine School, which is based in Shanghai, trains 4,000 to 5,000 people a year, and the number has grown by 30 to 40 percent per year. It has adopted most of the major global certificated courses such as the WSET and the Bordeaux Wine Certificate.

While the courses initially targeted industry insiders, half of his students are now ordinary consumers, he said.

"China is increasingly open to the world, and Chinese consumers have more access to rich global cultures," he said. "Wine is a product that has its unique cultural connotations and stories behind it, including its origins and unique local customs and practices, which serves to satisfy consumers' curiosity."

Xu said Chinese consumers are now more curious to learn about wine from a specific country, particularly France, Australia and Hungary.

This year, the school worked with Domaine Baron de Rothschild de Lafite in France to design a course introducing wine from the producer's eight vineyards to Chinese audiences. The course has been highly popular, he said.

"Many consumers are also curious about domestically produced wine, which they didn't understand before, so we are developing more courses about Chinese wine-producing areas," he added.

Xu said the wine-education market reached about 100 million yuan ($14.2 million) last year. As the industry is still in the early stages of development, its potential could be huge.

Liu Sen, senior general manager at major e-commerce platform JD, who is in charge of wine education at the company, said it launched a course intending to help staff members working in the sector better purchase wine and distinguish different varieties. Initially, about 90 percent of his students were involved in the wine business, but now they only account for 30 to 40 percent of the total, with many consumers now attending his classes.

"There are still only a few Chinese people who truly understand wine, even though many of them have drunk it a lot," he said. "Education could help staff members and consumers to purchase smarter and to taste wine better."