France has the biggest share of wine lists in greater China followed by Italy, Australia and New Zealand, a report into the on-premise market has revealed.

The report is based on what its authors, Wine Business Solutions (WBS) and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards, have described as the first research into the Chinese on-premise market which saw 36,000 listings from all key markets including Hong Kong and Macau examined.

The report notes that France’s share of China’s wine listings is in line with its share of imports into the country. In contrast, Italy only has a 6% share of total imports but an 18% share of wine listings.

Australia has a 27% share of imports but only 11% of listings – an improvement on how Australia performs in other markets, such as the UK and US where it has a 6% and 1% share of listings, respectively.

New Zealand represents just 1% of imports but is the fourth largest supplier country to the on-premise market.

According to WBS, Spain and Chile have tended to play at the bottom end of the Chinese market, engaging in a lot of bulk wine trading, so their image and share of on-premise listings is correspondingly low.

The 88-page report looks at who the best distributors are, the most listed wine brands and styles, the performance of supplier countries and regions, what participating restaurants charge for wine listed by-the-bottle and by-the-glass, and how much wine business owners and distributors can expect to make from on-premise sales.