Trumps touted tariffs threaten to sweep up Aussie lobsters [Video]

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For many winemakers, the path is paved with tentative steps and new strategies.

“The China market has changed quite dramatically,” said Peter Lucas, managing director of Peter Drayton Wines, a boutique winery in the NSW Hunter Valley.

“For us, it’s now about finding a niche. I don’t see us building a brand over the next five years – I’d like to, but we need to make money from the first container.”

Chinese consumers are drinking a third less wine now than in 2017, a trend that has spearheaded a global decline, while imports have plunged more sharply, by 60 per cent, since then.

It is Drayton’s first time at the expo and follows the closing of its warehouse in Foshan, near Guangzhou, after Beijing imposed tariffs of up to 220 per cent on Australian wine in 2020.

Where it once made a wine specifically for the Chinese wholesale market and …