Wine growers go online to boost sales

Capitalizing on the momentum, wine producers have begun hosting digital wine tasting, shipping a box of their product to Shanghai before logging onto Skype and walking Chinese wine experts through the tasting process. More than a dozen such events were hosted last year, Gallagher says.

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With a tight budget, it allows the community of growers to reach across the Pacific to work with Chinese experts and distributors without the huge cost of travel.

"We have to get creative and innovative - after all, that's what our wines are known for," she says.

"This is a way for us to reach that market and show off some of our fantastic wine makers during the times we're not able to be physically in the market."

During the Nov 11 Singles Day, which marks the country's largest volume of online sales, Chinese wine importer Summergate Fine Wines sold more than 100,000 bottles in a 24-hour period, according to a spokesperson.

With many small wine producers unable to have direct representation in China, the Internet is an essential tool for producers who would otherwise have to spend thousands in marketing, Boyce says.

Even with a Beijing office, social media has proven critical for French wine producer Le Ponty.

With a small team working out of its Beijing office, Helene Le Ponty says using platforms such as WeChat, a mobile text, voice messaging and payment service, and Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, have allowed the company to reach potential customers they would have otherwise overlooked.

"In order to compete in cities such as Beijing, foreign wine producers are having to become much more sophisticated in how they find potential customers," Le Ponty says.

"If you're not utilizing things such as Weibo, you're missing out."

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