Liu Xiangyu, General Manager of Eagle Canyon International Wine

Liu Xiangyu, General Manager of Eagle Canyon International Wine, is well known in the wine industry for introducing South African wines into China.

"People's standard of living keeps increasing in China, but most of time, people spend a lot of money on wine without getting a good product," Liu told ChinAfrica. "My basic intention is to bring good quality products from South Africa to China."

After graduating from Pretoria University, Liu joined Eagle International Group, an integrated company specializing in strategic investment and business management. South Africa is a Commonwealth nation, so the company's management style is heavily influenced by Western culture. Working for the company's real estate division enabled Liu to get experience working under Western-style management. Liu later moved to Cape Town, working in Eagle International Group's four-star hotel, where he began to shift his focus to the wine industry.

"In our hotel there were a lot of different vintages and wines," he said. "I gradually became interested in wine and began to learn about wine quality through wine tasting. I even became a certified wine taster."

In 2007, Liu returned to his home city Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, to found Eagle Canyon International Wine and enter the Chinese wine market. His excellent insight into the wine industry and understanding of market trends soon attracted a lot of attention.

Selling only the best

Wine produced in Western countries, especially by renowned wine estates like Chateau Lafite, is very popular in China. But this fame has been both a blessing and a curse, bringing Lafite wide market exposure in China, but also causing difficulties. The annual sales of Lafite in China are 10 times the Chateau's total output over the last decade. The discrepancy between sales volumes in China and Lafite's production resulted in a crack-down on fake wines in 2011, causing a credibility crisis on the Chinese wine market.

Such problems demonstrate the huge demand of Chinese market, but also show the average Chinese consumer's general lack of knowledge about wine. Liu sees this situation as an opportunity to introduce South African wine to China.

According to Liu, total sales of "Lieberstein" wine from South Africa reached 31 million liters as early as 1964, making it the world's top-selling bottled wine. Today, demand for South African wines is increasing all over the world, but up until 2007, 70 percent of South African wine was sold to Britain, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.