Aussie wine with ‘hints of smoked sausage’ bound for Chinese market
Australian wine labels may soon use terms like ‘hints of smoked sausage’ and ‘notes of dried hawthorn’ for the labels of wine bottles destined for the Chinese market.
Researchers from the University of South Australia have spent more than two years working to translate wine tasting notes for consumers unfamiliar with many western flavours.
Fifth-generation McLaren Vale winemaker Richard Angove said he realised there was a major problem with the way Australian wines were marketed in China when he went there in 2011.
“I’d be talking about strawberries and blueberries, and the group that I’d be talking to would be on their smartphone, trying to work out what this fruit was that I was talking about,” he said.
It’s a familiar story to Chinese-born, Adelaide-based winemaking postdoctoral student Lishi Zeng, who had never tasted a blueberry until she started studying in France as an adult.