For decades, China’s Lunar New Year has been built around banquets, gifting and big red bottles—a short, intense period that could make or break a wine importer’s year.
In the run-up to the 2026 holiday, those traditions still mattered. But among China’s largest wine importers, a quieter shift was taking place. As business-led demand softened, individual consumers began to matter more. Sparkling wines and whites, rarely associated with the holiday in the past, found new space on family tables and at small gatherings.
Interviews with eight leading importers conducted by Vino Joy News suggest the holiday season is no longer just a test of inventory and price, but a window into how China’s wine market is being rewired—brand by brand, category by category.
The interviewees ranged from full-channel supply-chain platforms such as Wajiu Group, to long-established importers focused on the on-trade like EMW Fine Wines, to large wholesalers and group-buying specialists such as Fond Wine. They also included niche-focused players such as Pran Cellar and Sparkling World. Together, their observations offer a snapshot of how China’s most important wine consumption season is evolving.
Their observations offer a rare, ground-level view of how China’s most important wine sales season is evolving—and what that may signal for the year ahead.
Click through the pages below to read them all.
Wajiu Group
Wajiu Group operates a full-channel alcohol ecosystem spanning more than 400 cities across China. It is also the parent company of boutique wine specialist Summergate and Torres China, and ranks among the country’s largest wine importers by scale.
Jin Song, general manager of Wajiu China, said the shift toward more everyday and younger wine consumption was particularly visible during the Lunar New Year period. On the channel side, the strongest growth came from formats offering convenience and clear consumption scenarios. These included instant-delivery e-commerce platforms, membership-based warehouse stores such as Sam’s Club that cater to household and personal consumption, and retail outlets in lower-tier markets focused on daily drinking occasions.
On the product side, Jin said commercially established brands with high consumer awareness continued to attract younger drinkers, supported by brand recognition and value-for-money positioning. At the same time, categories such as brandy, white wine and sweet wine saw rapid volume growth, driven by their approachable styles and lower barriers to entry, particularly in self-indulgence and everyday food-pairing scenarios.
“These characteristics are both a continuation of 2025 and the most defining features of the 2026 Lunar New Year season,” Jin said.
EMW Fine Wines
Founded in 2003, EMW Fine Wines is a long-established importer with operations across hotels, restaurants, retail and distributor channels. The company has clearly felt the impact of shifting personal consumption preferences on the Lunar New Year sales mix.
Marketing director Juanita Yu said end consumers now show a clear preference for sparkling wine and white wine, followed by red wine. Within the red wine category, lighter, more approachable styles are increasingly favoured.
In terms of pricing, wines priced below RMB 200 show the strongest sell-through. Across sparkling, red and white wines alike, products from traditional, well-known regions remain easier for consumers to accept.
CWS Trading (Shanghai)
Founded in 2006, CWS Trading (Shanghai) is part of France’s ELAN Group and operates across most of China’s tier-one and tier-two cities.
General manager Francisco Henriques said that in the current environment, consumers are gravitating toward lighter, fruit-forward white wines, while interest in domestic Chinese red wines is also rising.
“The market keep on changing, and flexibility to accommodate new requests from customers is even more crucial. Light and fruity whites are now demanded on this special period as also more Chinese reds,” he says.
That said, classic French regions such as Bordeaux and Burgundy remain the most popular choices during the Lunar New Year, he added. The key shift, he noted, lies in budget discipline, with consumers increasingly favouring more restrained price ranges.
Sparkling World
As one of China’s leading sparkling wine importers, and an agent for several Italian red wine brands, Sparkling World has felt the shift toward everyday consumption particularly strongly during the Lunar New Year season.
Founder Yu Hongjie said sparkling wine sales rose year on year during the 2026 peak season, while red wine sales declined by about 6%. “Sparkling wine is no longer just a summer drink,” he said. “Sales are performing well in both winter and summer.” He added that data from instant-delivery platform Waima also pointed to strong winter demand for dry white wines.
Consumption is concentrated among urban white-collar consumers under the age of 39, with drinking occasions centred on family gatherings and small get-togethers with friends—scenarios that become more frequent in the run-up to the Lunar New Year.
Yu also observed that consumers buying lower-priced sparkling wines tend to be less brand-sensitive and focus more on taste, while buyers of mid- to high-end red wines show a clear preference for leading brands.
Fond Wine
Founded in 2007, Xiamen-based Fond Wine represents international brands including Cono Sur from Chile, Trapiche from Argentina and Boschendal from South Africa. The company operates more than 100 branded retail stores nationwide and works with over 300 distributors.
General manager Wu Yonglei said the main driver of sales during this year’s Lunar New Year season came from wedding banquets and birthday celebrations in rural areas. Many people who work or do business away from home can only gather relatives and friends around the New Year, concentrating banquet consumption into this period and supporting sales.
In contrast, festive spending in urban areas was weaker. A softer atmosphere and economic pressure led to the cancellation of some banquets, resulting in more subdued sales performance.
Cono Sur remains Fond Wine’s best-selling brand, benefiting from its long-standing presence in the market. Sales are concentrated in three core SKUs priced at around RMB 50, just over RMB 100 and just over RMB 200.
Wu added that distributors have become noticeably more cautious, favouring smaller but more frequent orders. “As a result, we no longer shut down early for the holidays as in previous years, but remain on standby to serve customers at any time,” he said.
Pran Cellar
Pran Cellar focuses on mid- to high-end Australian wines. Headquartered in Melbourne, the company has offices in Shanghai and Guangzhou and represents more than 20 five-star wineries. Its clients include luxury hotels, high-end restaurants, boutique retailers and private customers, and it also handles a selection of South African wines.
CEO Hong Boyong said traditional group-buying channels remained the strongest performers during the Lunar New Year, with wines retailing at RMB 80 to RMB 200 showing the best sell-through. He added that the festive nature of the season had lifted the share of sparkling wine and non-alcoholic sparkling wine, mainly for family and corporate dining occasions.
Sparkling wine is typically used for celebratory moments, while non-alcoholic sparkling wine appeals to women, drivers and non-drinkers, helping maintain a festive atmosphere while reducing alcohol intake.
Overall shipments exceeded those of the previous Lunar New Year, Hong said. He attributed this partly to the later timing of the holiday, which effectively extended the sales cycle from early January through early February.
Devo Fast (Shenzhen)
Founded in 2010, Devo Fast is one of Shenzhen’s major wine importers. By 2017, its annual import volume had reached 690 containers, with sales exceeding RMB 100 million. In 2024, it began working with the Baron Philippe de Rothschild group and now has more than 5,000 distributors nationwide.
A company executive said the 2026 Lunar New Year season showed signs of recovery, with overall sales posting double-digit year-on-year growth. One key factor was the later timing of the holiday, which lengthened the peak sales period.
Sales were driven by two distinct product types: value-for-money wines from lesser-known brands, and the Chilean Escudo Rojo range under the Baron Philippe de Rothschild group. Large orders were concentrated in the latter, underscoring the drawing power of leading brands during festive consumption, while niche wines generated smaller, more fragmented orders.
Merveille Business (Shanghai)
Merveille Business (Shanghai), which represents several estates including those linked to the DBR Lafite group, has also seen a strong concentration effect around brands during the Lunar New Year season.
“Best-selling products during the Lunar New Year show a clear trend toward brand concentration and polarisation,” said CEO Li Yajun. “At one end are affordable mass-market products, and at the other are high-end wines from top estates. Demand from the very top tier of consumers has largely been unaffected by macroeconomic fluctuations.”
Li echoed observations from EMW and CWS that demand for white wine continues to rise. “It used to be mainly a summer drink,” he said, “but it is gradually becoming a year-round category.”
