China plans to improve the current wine quality recognition system in the country to match the world's wine standard and regulate the market. Several domestic wine makers are working with a state association on the benchmark, which is expected to be launched next year.

"Some poor quality wine is sold at an unreasonably high price. What's worse, some are even made from other materials instead of from grapes," said Geng Zhaolin, chairman of the Alcoholic Drinks Industry Association. "Some parts of the current standard are vague and can't keep up with the fast developing industry."

The previous wine standard allowed companies to make wine from diluted grape juices instead of from grapes as required by international standards.

China's wine industry produced 290,000 tons last year, an increase of 7 percent compared with a year earlier. Sales rose 9.9 percent year-on-year to hit 5.53 billion yuan (US$667.08 million) in 2002.

Changyu Pioneer Wine Co Ltd Yantai and China Great Wall Wine Co Ltd are involved in defining a standard framework which will help sell their wines better, executives from the two firms said.

Great Wall began to sell some of its wine products under a grading system last year. They were divided into five grades and were ranked from one star to five stars. The five-star wine was sold at 88 yuan while the one-star at 20 yuan.

"We grade our products to give consumers a clear picture of how to judge wine and to cater to different budgets," said Zhao Quanying, Great Wall's chief technology engineer. The company had a 600-million-yuan sales last year.

Changyu Pioneer went a little bit further, spending 60 million yuan to officially set up its own chateau in Yantai City, Shandong Province, last year. It seems the effort is paying off as earlier this month its first dry red wine from the chateau hit the market with a price tag of more than 300 yuan, the most expensive among home-grown wine.

"If the Chinese wine business wants to set foot in the world market and compete with foreign counter-parts, the country has to develop high-end wine products," said Zhou Hongjiang, general manager with Changyu.

The company, with a 111-million-yuan net profit last year and 20.37 percent market share, launched its first barreled wine priced at 80,000 yuan for the high-end market in July.

(eastday.com August 30, 2003)