Australian Wine Flavours Card launched

Helping Chinese customers understand and enjoy Australian wine has become easier today with the launch of the Australian Wine Flavours Card. 

The Australian Wine Flavours Card is a one-page tool produced by Wine Australia, based on research by the University of South Australia linking an Australian wine descriptor with an equivalent taste identified by Chinese consumers.

Wine Australia Chief Executive Officer Andreas Clark said the Australian Wine Flavours Card presents an exciting opportunity for the Australian wine community to better engage with their Chinese customers.

‘China is a key market for Australian wines and to be able to talk with these customers about the sensory aspects of our wine in a more relevant way will help our community’s competitiveness’, said Mr Clark. 

‘With the Australian Wine Flavours card we can now help guide Chinese customers through the tasting process by using these identified terms, which will help the sector engage more effectively and make drinking our wines even more enjoyable.’

Wine Australia Global Knowledge Manager Anne Duncan said the Wine Australia-funded research project that provided the foundation for the Card aimed to identify the terms that Chinese consumers themselves use when describing Australian wine.

‘Currently, wine is predominantly described using English sensory terms that may lack meaning for Chinese customers. The research helped to bridge this gap by asking regular drinkers of imported wine in China to describe Australian wine during blind tastings. The same wines were also described by sensory experts using common Australian wine terms and the descriptions were then linked.’

The Australian Wine Flavours Card was developed to show these equivalent terms and can be used equally by Australian wineries at their cellar door as by retail wine outlets and restaurants.

‘The Australian Wine Flavours Card helps wine businesses identify descriptors for Australian wine that are easily understood by Chinese wine customers’, said Ms Duncan.

‘For example, if an Australian winemaker was to describe a Cabernet as having hints of blackberry preserve, the Card shows that a Chinese customer would more easily identify this flavour as dried Chinese hawthorn. The winemaker could then suggest this to the customer on tasting their wine to facilitate better engagement with the wine.’

China continues to be a market of growth for Australian wine and Chinese customers are important for Australian wine businesses looking to increase their exports. The recent Wine Australia Export Report showed that the value of Australian wine exports to China grew 66 per cent to $370 million in the 12 months to December 2015. 

Australian wine businesses can register their interest to receive a free copy of the Australian Wine Flavours Card on Wine Australia's website.