10 The Linguist Vol/56 No/6 2017
www.ciol.org.uk
Selling wine
to China
L
ining the far aisle of your local supermarket is
an increasingly international selection of wine.
From Austrian Rieslings and South African
Chardonnays to Italian Chiantis and French Merlots,
today's consumers are spoilt for choice. Yet some
options may surprise even the most dedicated
connoisseurs. Nestling among more familiar bottles
at Tesco and Sainsbury's, wine-lovers can now pick
up a Chinese vintage or two.
China may not be known for its appreciation
of the grape, but its wine market is growing fast.
Domestic production is on the up in terms of
both quality and volume; only Spain dedicates
more land to vines worldwide, while increasingly
well-reputed Chinese wine companies, including
Changyu, Great Wall Wine and Grace Vineyard,
are building audiences both nationally and
internationally. Yet more wine still flows into China
than out of it. According to decanterchina.com,
2016 saw 482 million litres of bottled wine
imported with a value of US$2 billion – a 22%
increase compared to 2015. Overall, the Chinese
are now quaffing more vin rouge than the French
and the Italians.
This brings a need for translation. For imports,
key information – including winery name, region of
origin, alcohol content and more – is required, by
law, to be included in Chinese on the back label
of each bottle. Domestically-produced wines,
meanwhile, are commonly given English-language
names from the outset, bringing fewer translation
needs out of Mandarin for export. Among Grace
Vineyard's bottles, for example, are Deep Blue,
Chairman's Reserve and Angelina Sparkling.
"Imported wine has been around in China for
more than a decade now," explains Chuan Zhou,
Research Director at the marketing, strategy and
research company Wine Intelligence. "Over that
time, wine producers and brand owners developed
vocabulary to communicate with the Chinese
consumers." The problem was, this happened
organically, bringing various alternative translations
for common terms. "There are still four ways of
translating 'Merlot'," Zhou notes, "and they all look
and sound similar, which can be quite confusing".
Attempting to bring some consensus, the Norm
of Terminology Translation of Imported Wines, a
standardised list of words and phrases, was
published by the Chinese authority in 2015.
However, translators still have to work creatively.
"A lot of the fruits used to describe wines in
Europe are not familiar to Chinese people – such
as blackcurrant or elderflower," Zhou says. "I've
never had gooseberry in China." In 2016, Wine
Intelligence conducted research into which words
Chinese consumers found appealing on a wine
label. The top 20 included local flavours, such as
lychee and jasmine tea leaves. Women saw rose
The meteoric growth of the Chinese wine market brings
complex translation needs, finds Jessica Moore
Only Spain dedicates more
land to vines worldwide… the
Chinese are now quaffing more
vin rouge than the French
