SYDNEY, June 16 (Xinhua) -- The story of Australia's 1.1 billion Australian dollars (around 765.7 million U.S. dollars) wine exports to China, according to the data from Wine Australia in 2019, is far from an overnight success. Its bedrock is the deep cultural understanding and relationships cultivated over the years.
Wine, as one of Australia's main export, has a unique story from every other exporting industries.
Unlike the bulk resource and agricultural commodities which make up just over 50 percent of the nation's 438.1 billion Australian dollars (data for 2018 from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, about 304.96 billion U.S. dollars) in exports, Australian wine is produced in a vast multitude of varieties and exported to 120 countries by about 2,000 producers.
Australia's major bulk exporters can mostly count their global competitors on one hand, but not so for wine. "Australia is a small player," Andreas Clark, CEO of the industry's peak body Wine Australia told Xinhua on Monday.
"We have around 4 percent of global production. The big three in Europe are massive players in terms of their volume," said Clark, noting that the United States and Argentina are also their competitors.
More than half of the world's wine production comes from Italy, France and Spain, taking nearly 60 percent of the total global wine exports, while Australia is the world's fifth-largest wine exporter ranking the seventh in terms of global production.
"Wine is all about branding and positioning. It is not a bulk commodity and it works at different levels, so we work hand in glove with producers in taking our story to the world and helping people understand what is special about Australia," said Clark. "We export over 60 percent of production so export markets are critical."
IMPORTANCE OF CHINA MARKET
Only a small fraction of the Chinese population drinks wine but in a market of 1.4 billion consumers, small fractions still represent big numbers.
Presently numbering 50 million people, China's wine market is double the size it was just seven years ago. Nearly one-third of Australia's wine exports are headed for China.
"There's always this perception that it's been overnight success in China and that really understates what's involved. We all know that's not true," said Clark. "You can't just turn up and produce a bag of gold out of nothing in any market, especially not China. It comes off the back of a lot of hard work."
While the maturity of their markets and profile of consumers varies greatly from China, Britain and North America account for a similar export share to that of China. Clark said the industry understands there's inherent risk in overreliance on single markets.
"The industry is ve
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