China's wine investment market cools down

China, the world's fifth largest wine consumer, has shown the sign of a cooling wine market, the Oriental Morning Post reported Monday.

Shanghai, China's main distribution center for imported wines, have seen declining wine imports for five consecutive months, Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.

The Shanghai Customs District imported 29.63 million liters of wine in the first quarter of this year, and the average price dropped to $9.8 per liter. March imports were 7.35 million liters, a month-on-moth decrease of 11.3 percent according to the Xinhua report.

By contrast, in the second half of last year, the domestic wine market was extremely hot, and the average price reached $11.6 per liter.

According to industry insiders, China's wine market is returning to rational, said the Oriental Morning Post report.

Affected by the cooling high-end wine investment market, prices of products from Chateau Lafite Rothschild, a top-notch French vineyard plummeted. As of May 8, the bonded price of a 2008 Lafite product tumbled 53.4 percent to 7,230 yuan ($1,143.79) from 15,500 yuan and the bonded price of a 2004 Lafite product fell to 2,850 yuan from 4,900 yuan.

The report also quoted Wang Jiaqi, business development director of Shanghai Wine Exchange, as saying that before February 2011, prices of Lafite products had been skyrocketing, with buyers from China being an important force for its boom.

According to previously published data from the French Bordeaux Wine Industry Associations in 2010, China replaced the United Kingdom and Germany for the first time to become the largest importer of Bordeaux wine in 2010.