Wine grapes are low and difficult to sell, so some farmers give up management and let the vines freeze to death ......After years of downturn in China's wine consumption market, the area of wine grape cultivation in many wine producing regions has begun to shrink, and the production volume and sales of enterprises have declined significantly. Some industry insiders said that the development dilemma of China's wine industry is not only due to the lack of high-quality wine grape seedlings, but also due to the impact of imported wine. China's wine producing areas should pay attention to the excavation of cultural heritage, create a characteristic and differentiated image of products, and enhance the overall competitiveness of the industry.
Wine encounters a gap between ideals and reality.
Grape wine luminous glass, want to drink the pipa immediately urge. "A thousand years ago, Wang Han's poem "Liangzhou Ci" made Gansu culturally associated with grape wine, and the unique geographical conditions also allowed Gansu to distribute a large number of suitable areas for planting wine grapes, especially the vast desert area along the Hexi Corridor is located in the world's best production area of wine raw materials - between 36 degrees and 40 degrees north latitude, there is the best combination of light, heat, water and soil resources suitable for grape growth.
In 2010, Gansu Province issued the "Gansu Provincial Wine Industry Development Plan (2010-2020)", which proposed that by 2020, the grape planting area in Gansu should reach 500,000 mu, the wine market share should account for about 10% of the national wine market, and the wine sales will exceed 40 billion yuan. In 2014 and 2021, the state revised the "Catalogue of Encouraged Industries in the Western Region" twice, and both listed "high-quality wine grape planting and brewing" as the first industry to encourage the development of Gansu.
However, the actual development is far from the original plan. The reporter learned from the Gansu Provincial Wine Circulation Industry Promotion Center that Gansu began to develop the wine industry in the 80s of the 20th century, and around 2011, the planting area of wine grapes in Gansu once developed to 300,000 mu, and the sales of wine enterprises in the province reached 1.2 billion yuan. Since then, the wine industry in Gansu has been declining for many years. In 2022, the actual planting area of wine grapes in Gansu will be less than 150,000 mu, and the sales of wine enterprises will drop to 3200 million yuan. Of the 19 wine production enterprises in the province, only 6 have annual sales of more than 10 million yuan.
Some industry insiders said that the recession of Gansu's wine producing areas has a lot to do with the downturn in the domestic wine market. Over the past decade, wine consumption in China has risen from a peak of 193 trillion liters fell to 8800 million liters, down 54%. According to the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV)'s "State of the World's Grape and Wine Industry 2022" report, China's wine consumption fell by 16% in 2022, while imports also fell by 21%, with both domestic and imported wines hitting new lows.
Multiple factors hinder the development of the wine industry.
Du Guangzhen, chairman of Gansu Mogao Industrial Development, introduced that since 2012, China has implemented a zero-tariff policy on imported wine from some countries, which has increased the squeeze of imported wine on the domestic wine market, which has brought great pressure to domestic wine production enterprises, and imported wine has accounted for two-thirds of domestic wine consumption.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics and the General Administration of Customs, from January to July 2023, the wine output of domestic enterprises above the designated level was 740,000 kiloliters, while wine imports in the same period were 15260,000 kiloliters, import value 489.8 billion yuan.
The high tax burden and rising production costs have also put domestic wines in a disadvantageous position. Chen Sheng, general manager of Gansu Xia Bolan Liquor, said that China's wine is managed according to industrial products, and 13% value-added tax and 10% consumption tax are levied, with a comprehensive tax rate of more than 25%, which is much higher than the 10% comprehensive tax rate of the same industry abroad.
In recent years, the cost of labor and packaging materials has risen significantly, which has increased the pressure on domestic wine production enterprises. Hao Yan, vice president of Gansu Wine Industry Association, said that compared with foreign production areas, many domestic wine producing areas have low winter temperatures, and it is necessary to bury the grape vines in soil and keep them warm, and the cost of one acre of land alone is 1,000 yuan. In addition, the main raw materials of wine are significantly larger, of which packaging materials exceed 30%, and continue to rise, which greatly increases production costs.
In addition, the lack of high-quality wine grape seedlings has become an important bottleneck for the development of the industry. Chen Sheng introduced, the current production of grape seedlings are mostly cheap self-propagating root seedlings, its frost resistance, drought resistance and resistance to diseases and pests is relatively poor, in the event of low temperature, drought weather will cause the decline of grape yield and quality, extreme low temperature weather will also cause seedlings to freeze to death, become an important bottleneck in the development of the domestic wine industry.
Excavate and enhance the competitiveness of production areas.
In the interview, many people said that with the development of China's economy, the enhancement of people's health awareness and the popularization of wine culture, the domestic wine industry still has broad market prospects. They suggested that domestic wine producing areas should start from strengthening brand building and tapping cultural heritage to upgrade the advantages of production areas.
The first is to increase the construction of wine brands and form a cluster of boutique wineries. Each domestic wine producing area should adhere to the overall publicity and marketing, adhere to the development path of clustering, quality and internationalization, and form a cluster of high-quality wineries. At the same time, we will vigorously promote standardized planting and do a good job in protecting the origin of wine grape planting.
The second is to pay attention to the excavation of cultural heritage and combine the wine industry with modern cultural tourism. Chen Sheng, Hao Yan and others said that wine is not entirely a foreign product, and there are a large number of poems describing wine in Tang and Song poems. Through the excavation of wine history and culture, China should form a wine culture with unique quality, rich connotation and easy to accept by everyone, and promote the development of the industry. Xu Wenliang, general manager of Gansu Binhe Group, said that the development of winery tourism is a major trend, which is not only a means for wine enterprises to diversify, but also a cultivation of the wine consumption market.
The third is to increase support for domestic advantageous wine producing areas. Relevant departments should support the formation of large-scale planting bases, enterprises, small wineries, etc. in terms of taxation and capital, and at the same time formulate and improve the relevant laws and regulations and integrity system of private lending, and open up the channels for private capital and other social capital to enter the wine grape industry. (Reporter Zhang Xinxin reports from Lanzhou).
Editor-in-charge: Lang Jingjing.