Hong Kong, has become the hub of asian wine markets since 2008 when duty on wine was slashed to zero, with this very intention. Duties on wine imported to the rest of china are substantial and therefore many of the army of new Chinese wine collectors buy and keep their fine wines in this southern enclave. The number of wine storage facilities, wine merchants, wine auctions, and wine trade fairs in Hong Kong has soared accordingly. By the second decade of this century, auction totals in Hong Kong had overtaken those in all of Europe, and virtually every fine wine trader had a Hong Kong outpost. Reliable statistics are not available but a very considerable quantity of fine wine is thought to cross the border into China from Hong Kong, some of it hand-carried. Hong Kong’s first urban winery, The 8th Estate, has been making wine from imported grapes since 2007 and was joined by Portrait Winery in 2010.
