Moët-Hennessy To Produce Red Wine In China, For China

by Jing Daily

30 Hectare Vineyard To Be Located In Yunnan Province

In response to growing consumer demand, luxury giants like LVMH are investing heavily in the China wine market

Following the lead of Les Domaines Barons de Rothschild, which developed 25 hectares of vineyards in Shandong province in 2008, recently the luxury giant LVMH announced that it has invested in a vineyard in the mountains of Yunnan province, southwest China, to develop its own 30 hectare vineyard. According to the French business magazine Challenges.fr, LVMH will work with the wine and spirits distributor VATS on the project, which will focus on producing red wine expressly for the China domestic market.

Though Moët-Hennessy is best known as a champagne producer, focusing on red wine indicates the company is in no hurry to make sparkling white wines in Yunnan, which — despite growing popularity — are less widely consumed there than reds.

The upcoming Yunnan vineyard is only the latest move in China for LVMH, which has aggressively expanded many of its luxury brands in second- and third-tier Chinese cities in recent years with the aim of tapping the emerging inland middle class consumer. In recent years, LVMH has markedly increased its presence in the China wine and spirits market, acquiring the Sichuan-based baijiu producer Wenjun and, more recently, beginning production of a high-end sparkling wine in the western province of Ningxia.