-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
/
tastingRecap.html
65 lines (61 loc) · 9.23 KB
/
tastingRecap.html
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/cdn.willigant.com/static/favicons/willigantfinewines.ico?load=new" />
<link href="resources/css/master.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<!--[if lte IE 6]>
<link href="/resources/css/ie6.xcss" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="/resources/css/pngFix/iepngfix_tilebg.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
<title> WilliGant Fine Wines | January Tastings </title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="header"></div>
<div id="mainContent">
<div id="rightBar">
<img class="bmar" src="resources/images/tastings/012111/january.jpg" />
<h2 class="nomar nopad bmar-h"> Cities Traveled </h2>
<p><b>Beijing</b>, is the home base of our operation. Beijing is like the Washington D.C. of China. It is recognized as the political, educational, and cultural center of China. The cultural history and importance of Beijing when compared to other cities around the world is near unparalleled. As with any other city in China, the traffic was most of the day at a stand still, but Beijing tops the list as far as packed and crowded cities goes. We surveyed a couple of accounts around Beijing and saw a couple of things: a) the importance of gift sets b) how much the market still has to mature. A store buyer spoke especially with the Chinese new year approaching that customers were coming into the store looking to buy a gift set to give to a client, friend, or family member. Fancy gift sets he said were essential to good sales for wine all during the year as well. The market is made up of consumers who don't know much about wine at all. This may be true still in the U.S. but the level of education and knowledge is much less here. Customers just know French wines for the most part and don't know what they are buying most of the time, just a price and whatever the store owner tells them. This shows the importance of having good relationships with store owners so he will hand sell our product instead of another. This also shows the importance of more tastings and general wine education especially from other regions other than France. We also see a need for a general advertising campaign for California wines in general. This is something we think down the line could be very beneficial.</p>
<img src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=Beijing+china&hl=en&zoom=4&size=450x225&maptype=roadmap&sensor=false" />
<p><strong>Langfang</strong>, which is in the Hebei province of China, is about a hour south of Beijing. By China's standards it is a small city of about 3.5 million, which speaks to the incredible population in China. Langfang is known as China's Silicon Valley with emphasis on its computers and technology. The wine industry is in its infant stages with most people familiar only with French wines, which seemed to have saturated the market. However, we tried some French wine the day before our tasting and it was of very poor quality. We were told this was due to Chinese wine fraudulently being labeled French. Most of the Chinese people only know what they are told and if it is a French Label with an older vintage, they automatically think it is a good bottle of wine; even if its actually poor quality Chinese red wine. This is why we believe that these tastings are very important to a) educate buyers about wine in general and b) taste them on high quality California wines.
</p>
<img src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=langfang+china&hl=en&zoom=7&size=450x225&maptype=roadmap&sensor=false" />
<p><strong>Shijiazhuang</strong>, which is in the Hebei province, is about four hours southwest of Beijing. It contains the Shijiazhuang metropolitan area, which consists of a population of 9.6 million. The first thing that I noticed when I walked into the hotel was the poor "French" wine that we tasted the night before our first tasting. I'm not sure whether it was fraudulent or not, but in either case they have a good job with their penetration. This also tells me that there is room and potential for a better quality wine to join it on the shelves. That is the general theme that I am taking from seeing each city is that each is ripe with potential. I also see lots of adds for red wine on billboards, which shows me that the seeds are in place for continued growth.
</p>
<img src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=Shijiazhuang+china&hl=en&zoom=6&size=450x225&maptype=roadmap&sensor=false" />
<h2> Our Audience </h2>
<p>Our audience ranged from government officials, famous actors, head of hotel chains, karaoke bar owners, and conglomerate head of liquor stores around China. Each crowd varied in their knowledge of wine so each tasting we proceeded by reviewing basic tasting techniques and basic facts about wine and the wine we had to offer. Most of the members of the audience had never tasted California wines but had only tried French wines and cheap Chinese red wine. Every tasting was eye opening to our audience and we had varied positive reactions to the wine. </p>
<h2> Tasting Views </h2>
<p>The wine industry is in its infancy in China. French wine has flooded the market and most are uneducated and unfamiliar with wine in general. They are unfamiliar with the proper way to taste wine and how to note the complexities of various wines and if they do know red wine are mostly only familiar with Cabernet Sauvignon. French wines are bought with some regularity but mostly to give as gifts. In that case are mostly bought based on how expensive they are and how "famous" they are. They are also almost always bought in a fancy looking gift set. Education and marketing for American wines we believe is essential. During the tastings we tried to emphasize the quality of wines from California and that some of the best wines in the world are from wine country. We also emphasized the difference in quality from Chinese wine, which were light and lacking complexity and the Cabernets that we brought. The difference was fairly obvious but we went into explaining why there was such a difference. </p><p>
The audiences were very receptive to learning more about the wine and once taught the correct way to taste, were able to do so very well. The audience all expressed similar sentiments: the wine had much more of a fuller body than most wine they had tried before. Some of the tasters remarked that the Pinot Noir was a bit too light for their liking and in general most of the tasters were most fond of the Cabernet Sauvignon. We believe that once the Chinese pallette develops there will be more of a call for other red wines besides Cabernet Sauvignon. </p>
<h2>Pricing Concerns</h2>
<p>With the high taxes to get the wine over to China, some of the buyers we spoke with were concerned with prices. They are used to extremely expensive French wines and cheap Chinese wine. As mentioned before the market is still in its beginning stages and the consumers have to become accustomed to paying for a quality wine they will enjoy. This will be assisted with marketing and more tastings, just like the ones we do in China. As we move further along in our relationships with our buyers, it will become easier for them to hand sell our wines and make sure that customers are comfortable with the price.</p>
<h2>Moving Forward</h2>
<p>These tastings are important for a number of reasons. First, it allows our buyers to try our wines firsthand and ask any questions and raise any concerns they might have. They have direct contact with customers so they know what people are unsure about and what they like. It also allows us to connect with wine enthusiasts who aren't as familiar with CA wines. It allows us to showcase some of the United States best wines in a friendly and comfortable environment. It allows us to attract and recruit new clients that can lead to orders on the spot. Chinas industry is growing at such an incredible space that buyers are aggressive and looking to expand their stores and restaurants and also their wine selection. We want to capitalize on this and we believe that wine tastings are a good way to do that.</p>
</div>
<img src="resources/images/logo.png" id="logo" title="WilliGant Fine Wines" />
<div id="leftBar">
<h3> Thoughts? Concerns? We would love to have your thoughts! </h3>
<form action="http://finewines.willigant.com/contact.php" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" method="post">
<label> Name</label>
<input type="text" name="name" />
<label> Phone</label>
<input type="text" name="phone" />
<label> Email</label>
<input type="text" name="email" value="email@example.com" class="hidden" />
<input type="text" name="emailConfirm" />
<label> Comment</label>
<textarea name="message"></textarea>
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="send" />
<button type="submit">Contact Us</button>
</form>
</div>
<div class="clearfloat"></div>
</div>
<div id="footer"></div>
<div id="footerInfo" class="text-center"> © 2016 WilliGant Ltd | exec@willigant.com | +1 (516) 522-0554 </div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>