Fang Mei fell in love with wine while working as a banker. She now grows her own grapes, has launched her own label, and represents several New Zealand brands in China. Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
It had been a while since Fang Mei had seen her grapes after having been stuck in Shanghai during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But she has managed to come back to her Martinborough vineyard this season to find the grapes turning colour and the nets draped over the vines to keep birds at bay.
She normally travels here at harvest time to help bring in the fruit, the rest of the time she is busy in China educating people about wine and acting as agent for several New Zealand labels.
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Checking the grapes, picking fruit in her orchard and getting to know her local community is a change of pace from her life in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
"It's a very different life compared to the life I'm used to living, urban - totally different and very, very quiet, very relaxed."
A graduate of Massey University, Mei fell in love with the Pinot Noir grape after being introduced to wine during her days working for the National Bank of New Zealand and taking part in the tradition of Friday drinks.
She then went to a blind wine tasting competition and did quite well.
"That's how I started to get to know wine at the beginning. And then I found I really love wine, and I went to lots of wine regions in New Zealand, and I saw beautiful places and saw nice people.
"I thought, maybe I can do something, which connects me, you know, between China and New Zealand."
She did some further study in the wine field and since 2014 has been the agent for several organic and biodynamically grown brands from New Zealand.
It has been a decade of educating Chinese consumers, she told Country Life.
Fang Mei's Pinot Noir grapes turning colour - the veraison stage Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
When she first started in the business, only French wine was well-known and little was understood about different varieties of grape or white wine as a whole.
"So, we did a lot of education for the market and to help people to know about New Zealand wine and Pinot, which is my favourite."
NZ wine competition with Made in China brands
China is New Zealand's seventh largest market for our wine exports. It bucked the overall downward trend for New Zealand wine exports in 2024, growing in value by about 5 percent to $38 million.
Our produce is competing against Australian wine again - now that China's punitive tariffs on Australian wine have been lifted - as well as China's domestically produced wine.
"We got a lot of young winemakers from overseas, and they came back to their hometown, and they set up their own small wineries, and the quality's getting better and better.
"The government really encourages domestic wine, so we got very intense competition from domestic wines at the moment."
Fang Mei is targeting younger customers with organic brands and using influencers and bloggers on social media.
The industry body New Zealand Winegrowers is also in on the trend using New Zealand actor and vineyard owner Sam Neill to promote New Zealand wine in China via the social media platform Xiaohongshu also known as Little Red Book.
RedNote or Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) as seen on a mobile phone app store. Photo: Jaap Arriens / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP
The trend of bistro-style dining and a growing class of well-travelled younger consumers interested in organic and so-called natural wine is Fang Mei's focus. She represents several organic New Zealand wine brands.
The use of bloggers and influencers on Little Red Book to sell wine there is also key, she said. One they have linked up with has half-a-million followers.
"As long as they find your products interesting and they like it, they just become our [wholesalers] and they make videos about your wine, and they talk about the wine, they educate people, their customers, their followers, and they teach young people how to drink, the wine, how to taste, and the region, about the varieties, everything."
Fang Mei now has her own wine label Achernar, named after one of the brightest stars in the sky.
It's a star which can be seen in China as well as her vineyard here in New Zealand.
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