This week’s “Wine in China” case reminded me of a funny wine memory I hadn’t thought about in years. After graduating from my undergraduate university in 2012, a good friend and I moved to Shenzhen, China, for the summer. We had been asked by a tutoring company to lead workshops for Chinese high schoolers on how to apply to American universities, specifically focusing on that elusive personal statement essay. Long story short, we soon realized that Shenzhen is not a glamorous city. Its stifling temperature and lack of activities other than shopping resulted in our spending a considerable amount of time inside together. We obviously needed wine.
On our first wine shopping adventure, we discovered Great Wall Wine (images below). As recent college grads easily pleased by Charles Shaw, we thought the $4-5 bottles were fantastic. We picked up several and made our way back to our apartment, excited to dive into a wine-accompanied Netflix marathon.
I never got around to researching Great Wall Wine, but was inspired by this case to poke around online. In line with the timeline provided in our case, the company was founded in 1983 and is China's largest wine producer. Most interestingly, in my opinion, it is a subsidiary of state-owned COFCO Group. COFCO, or “China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation,” is the largest food processor, manufacturer, and trader in China. Yet the company does market is wine around the world, including USA, the UK, and even France. Needless to saw Great Wall wine isn't available in Menlo Park's K&L Wines, but it is available for purchase online.
Given last session's discussion of family-owned wine operations, I found this comparison of a state-owned winery quite interesting. Based on my tastings alone, however, I think my personal bent will be to by from the former.
