Virtual vintners sink roots deep in China, unnerve wine importers

Wu Zhendong sees himself as something of a wine buff. The 25-year-old lawyer from China's western city of Chengdu is a member of his local wine club, likes to drink Chateauneuf-du-Pape - and now, like many of his peers, buys most of his wine online.

Wu reflects a major shift in China's $14.2 billion wine market, where increasingly price-savvy shoppers are driving a boom in online trade, upending the fast-growing market that has long been dominated by large-scale importers.

China's wine market, hit hard by Beijing's crackdown on ostentatious spending and corruption in 2012, is starting to show signs of revival, but lavish spending by China's wealthy elite has been replaced by more prudent consumption.