Top 10 Trends in Wine in China
Updated
After enduring several challenging years, China’s wine market is at a turning point .
Despite the resurgence of activity in hospitality venues and tourist spots, wine consumption hasn’t fully rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. Yet, the shifting preferences of Chinese consumers present fresh opportunities for brands that adapt effectively.
Wine Consumer Dynamics
The driving force behind China’s wine market is increasingly the younger generation, whose tastes and consumption habits differ markedly from those of their elders. These evolving preferences represent both challenges and potential growth avenues for wine brands.
Top 10 Trends in Wine in China
- Memorable Occasions:
- Event-Driven Consumption: Young Chinese consumers enjoy celebrating special occasions with unique beverages. The popularity of mulled wine during the festive season is a testament to this trend, where both homemade and restaurant-served varieties have gained traction.
- Social Media Impact: The visual appeal and easy customization of drinks like mulled wine have boosted their presence on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, enhancing their appeal through social sharing and discussions.
- Health-Conscious Selections:
- Growing Health Awareness: The demand for healthier, low-alcohol, or non-alcoholic wine options is rising, particularly among women, reflecting a broader health-conscious trend accelerated by the pandemic.
- Organic and Specialized Products: Organic wines and those perceived as healthier are gaining popularity. This shift is leading to increased interest in specific categories like white wines, low-alcohol wines, and uniquely branded “girly wines.”
- Pursuit of Unique Flavors:
- Novelty and Variety: There is a growing appetite for wines that offer unique tastes and are made from less common grape varieties or using innovative winemaking techniques. Such products cater to a desire for individuality and new experiences among younger consumers.
- Baijiu-Infused Tea:
- Innovative Fusion: This trend combines traditional Chinese baijiu with various teas, creating a unique beverage that caters to local tastes while introducing a novel way to enjoy these age-old drinks. This innovation appeals to both traditional baijiu drinkers and younger consumers looking for an authentic yet contemporary experience.
- Red Lifestyle:
- Holistic Health Approach: The concept of the ‘Red Lifestyle’ involves integrating health-conscious habits with luxury living, where quality wine is part of a balanced, aspirational lifestyle. This trend is particularly appealing to urban professionals who prioritize wellness and prestige in their consumption choices.
- Co-Branding Ventures:
- Strategic Partnerships: Co-branding between wine brands and companies from other sectors (like fashion or technology) is on the rise. These collaborations create exclusive products that benefit from cross-industry appeal, enhancing brand visibility and reaching wider audiences.
- Celebrity-Endorsed Wines:
- Star Power: Wines associated with celebrities, whether as endorsers or owners, attract considerable attention on the market. The involvement of celebrities can significantly boost a wine’s profile and desirability, leveraging their fan base for increased sales and brand loyalty.
- Wine discovery Travel: With the resurgence of travel, wine tourism has become an attractive option. Young Chinese travelers are keen to explore major wine-producing regions, and this interest extends to wine-related gastronomy experiences.
- Boost from Local and International Travel: The recent uptick in domestic and international travel is likely to enhance visibility and sales for wineries that effectively market themselves to Chinese tourists, potentially making them a staple of travel itineraries.
- Douyin Wine Sales:
- Social Commerce: Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, has become a powerful platform for direct wine sales, with features that allow users to purchase wine while watching entertaining and informative content. This integration of e-commerce into social media makes wine buying spontaneous and fun, particularly appealing to the tech-savvy younger generation.
- Quality Over Quantity:
- Premiumization Trend: There’s a growing preference for higher-quality wines among Chinese consumers, who are increasingly willing to spend more for wines that offer exceptional quality and unique stories. This shift is evident from the rising interest in boutique wineries and limited-edition wines that emphasize craftsmanship and exclusivity.
KOL Wine in Douyin
Conclusion
For wine brands looking to capitalize on these trends, understanding and aligning with the youthful consumer’s lifestyle and preferences is key. Brands that innovate and create appealing, health-conscious, and unique wine experiences will likely find success in this evolving market. Engaging effectively with consumers on popular platforms like Xiaohongshu will also be crucial in driving brand awareness and adoption among China’s younger demographics.
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The 2026 market reality: what the data shows
China’s wine market is contracting, and the numbers confirm it. Domestic wine production fell 17.1% year-on-year in 2025 to just 97,000 kiloliters, a historic low, according to Winesinfo. Imported wine volumes dropped 12.5% in the first half of 2025 alone, though average import prices rose 13% to €5.70 per liter, signaling a clear shift toward premium products, per Winesinfo’s H1 2025 trade report. The overall market is now roughly one-third the size it was five years ago. That contraction is real. But inside it, specific segments are growing, and brands that understand where Chinese consumers are heading will find room to move.
Premiumization: fewer bottles, higher price per bottle
The most important shift in China’s wine market is not the decline in volume. It is the structural upgrade in what people are willing to pay for a bottle.
Bulk wine imports dropped more than 20% in volume in H1 2025, while the average price per liter surged over 32%. Bag-in-box formats, which represent the budget end of the market, saw their total value fall 31.2%. Meanwhile, bottled wine held firm at €615 million in value despite a 7.4% volume decline, because buyers were paying more per unit. Average bottle prices rose 6.4% to €8.23 per liter.
This is not a market in freefall. It is a market shedding its low-margin, high-volume base and concentrating spend among buyers with real purchasing power.
The consumer behind this shift is 30 to 49 years old, urban, and increasingly female. She is not buying wine to impress colleagues at a dinner. She is buying it because she wants to. That distinction matters for how brands should communicate.
In terms of categories, sparkling wine saw import volume rise 21% in the same period, even as total value dipped slightly. White wine is gaining ground. Low-alcohol and alcohol-free wine formats are drawing attention from younger consumers who care about lifestyle and health. Traditional dry red wine, which dominated China’s wine identity for two decades, is losing share to these alternatives.
For imported wine brands, the tactical implication is clear. Position in the mid-to-premium tier. Products priced under RMB 100 per bottle face brutal competition from domestic producers and discount e-commerce. Products priced above RMB 300 need to justify their price through story, origin, and digital presence. The middle ground between those two poles is where competition is fiercest and margin pressure is highest.
France remains the top supplier by value, but its dominance is slipping. French wine exports to China fell 36% in the first ten months of 2025. Chile and Spain are gaining ground on price-to-quality positioning. Australia, after three years locked out by tariffs lifted in March 2024, is rebuilding fast: Australian wine exports to China hit AU$902 million in the nine months following the tariff removal, a significant rebound that is reshaping the competitive set.
Digital channels and the rise of the Chinese wine consumer
Wine discovery in China now happens on Douyin and Xiaohongshu before it happens in a shop or restaurant.
Douyin’s alcohol category saw 38% growth in early 2025, driven by live-stream selling and short-video content. Wine brands that invested in Douyin content, with KOLs showing bottles in casual home settings rather than formal banquet rooms, captured a new kind of buyer. Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) plays a different role: 70% of its users are women aged 18 to 35, primarily in first-tier cities. These users search for wine recommendations the way they search for skincare reviews. They trust peer accounts over brand accounts. They respond to genuine tasting notes, food pairings, and honest opinions.
A useful case here is how several Chilean wine brands repositioned on Xiaohongshu between 2023 and 2025. Rather than running polished brand campaigns, they partnered with amateur wine accounts with between 20,000 and 100,000 followers. These micro-KOLs posted casual videos of opening bottles at dinner, explaining flavors without jargon, and tagging specific Tmall store links. The approach drove measurable traffic and conversion without the cost of celebrity KOL deals.
WeChat remains important for retention and CRM. Brands use WeChat Official Accounts and Mini Programs to build loyalty programs, push limited-edition releases, and connect with distributors. But WeChat is not a discovery channel for new audiences. It works once someone already knows your brand.
E-commerce platforms anchor the purchase. Tmall Global and JD.com handle the bulk of premium imported wine transactions. Pinduoduo handles volume at the low end. For brands targeting the RMB 150 to 500 price range, Tmall Global is the primary storefront. Getting listed, maintaining product pages in Chinese, running 618 and Double 11 promotions, and managing buyer reviews all require sustained effort.
Geographic concentration also shapes digital strategy. Nearly 60% of all imported wine entered China through Shanghai and Guangdong in 2025, according to Vino Joy. Shandong also remains a key entry point. Targeting digital campaigns at consumers in these regions first makes sense before expanding nationally.
What changed between 2024 and 2026
Two structural breaks define this period.
First, the May 2025 regulation banning alcohol at official government events eliminated the gifting and banquet channel that had sustained premium wine sales for years. High-end imported red wine, particularly Bordeaux grands crus and aged Burgundy, was disproportionately exposed to this channel. Brands that relied on corporate gifting orders and state-linked hospitality accounts lost a major revenue stream almost immediately. Changyu Pioneer Wine, China’s largest domestic wine maker, saw its net profit attributable to shareholders drop 76.64% in full-year 2025, partly due to this collapse in the institutional channel, per Vino Joy.
Second, Australia’s return to the market after China lifted tariffs in March 2024 changed the competitive picture significantly. Australian wines at the RMB 150 to 250 price point, which consumers already knew and trusted from before the trade freeze, came back into the market with strong promotional energy. They took share from Chilean and Spanish wines that had filled the gap during the ban years.
Consumer attitudes also shifted. The COVID years accelerated a long-term move away from wine as a status symbol toward wine as a personal pleasure. Younger drinkers, particularly women, now treat wine the way they treat premium tea or craft coffee: something to enjoy alone or with close friends, documented on social media for the aesthetic, not for the status signal. This matters for packaging, pricing, and brand voice.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Chinese wine market growing or shrinking?
The overall market is shrinking in volume. China’s domestic wine production hit a historic low of 97,000 kiloliters in 2025, down 17.1% year-on-year. Imported wine volumes also fell 12.5% in H1 2025. However, the market is not uniformly negative. Average import prices rose 13% in the same period, meaning buyers are spending more per bottle even as they buy fewer. Sparkling wine imports grew 21% in volume. The premium and ultra-premium segments are more stable than the overall numbers suggest. Brands that chase volume will struggle. Brands that chase value-per-unit and focus on engaged consumers can still grow revenue in a shrinking market.
Which digital platform works best for wine brands in China?
It depends on your objective. For discovery and building brand awareness among younger consumers, Xiaohongshu is the most effective platform in 2025-2026. Its user base skews toward urban women aged 18 to 35 who actively search for wine content, and they respond better to micro-KOL recommendations than to brand-produced posts. For sales conversion and live-stream commerce, Douyin is the strongest platform, with the alcohol category growing 38% in early 2025. For CRM, loyalty, and distributor communication, WeChat is essential. Most wine brands in China need to be active on all three, but with distinct content strategies per platform, not the same post republished across channels.
How has the Chinese government’s alcohol ban affected wine imports?
The May 2025 directive banning alcohol at official government events, state-owned enterprise functions, and government-linked business meals removed one of the key demand drivers for premium imported wine. High-end Bordeaux and Burgundy had benefited from this gifting and banquet culture for years. The regulation disrupted those purchasing patterns immediately. French wine exports to China fell 36% in the first ten months of 2025. The ban does not affect private consumption or retail purchases, but it has forced brands to rebuild their sales channels around personal consumer spending rather than institutional buying. Brands that adapt to this shift faster will recover faster.
What wine styles are gaining popularity in China right now?
The traditional dominance of dry red wine in China is fading. Sparkling wine is the clearest growth category: import volumes rose 21% in H1 2025. White wine is gaining ground, particularly among younger female consumers who find it more approachable for casual drinking. Low-alcohol and alcohol-free wine formats are early-stage but attracting attention, especially on Xiaohongshu where health-conscious content performs well. Rosé is growing steadily in first-tier cities. Natural wine is a niche but visible trend in Shanghai and Beijing, driven by independent wine bars and food media. Chinese domestic wines from Ningxia’s Helan Mountain region are also earning genuine consumer interest, with the region targeting annual sales of 200 billion yuan by 2035 as it builds its premium identity.
How to move forward
Foreign wine brands entering or re-entering China in 2026 need to be realistic about the channel shift. Institutional buying is gone for now. The private consumer is your target, and she lives on Douyin and Xiaohongshu before she buys on Tmall.
Start with your digital presence. If your brand has no Chinese-language content and no presence on Xiaohongshu, you are invisible to the consumer who matters most right now. Work with micro-KOLs in the wine and lifestyle space. Invest in a proper Tmall Global or JD flagship store before running traffic to it. Price your product for the RMB 150 to 500 range if you want meaningful volume. Above RMB 500 requires a serious brand-building investment before conversion happens.
If you are running Douyin campaigns, treat it as a sales channel, not just an awareness play. Live-stream formats with genuine tasting content convert better than produced brand videos. A Douyin agency that knows the wine category can set up and run those campaigns with the right KOL mix.
Distribution still matters. Finding a reliable, specialized importer who already works in your price segment is faster than building your own logistics from scratch. See how to find a reliable Chinese distributor to understand what that process looks like in practice.
If you want to discuss your specific situation and get a plan that fits your brand, reach out at seoagencychina.com/contact-us.
Marcus Zhan is a China marketing specialist based in Shanghai. He covers digital marketing, consumer trends, and brand strategy for the Chinese market. Connect with him on LinkedIn for wine and China market insights.
Sources: Winesinfo — China Imported Wine Volume H1 2025 | Winesinfo — China Alcohol Ban Official Events 2026 | Vino Joy — China Wine Import Geography 2025 | Vino Joy — Changyu Lowest Profit in 20 Years | VVR International — Chinese Wine Market 2026