Handpicked Wines has hosted its largest Chinese distributor visit to date, inviting 120 of its top performing distributors from across Hong Kong, Beijing, GuangDong province, GuangXi province, Inner Mongolia, Fujian province and other areas in China to experience Australian wine first-hand.

The groups were brought out as part of an annual incentive program introduced by the Australian wine brand for its top performing Chinese distributors. All of the visitors either own liquor retail stores or offer wholesale distribution of Handpicked Wines within their cities. The first group arrived on March 13th, and the final group are departing Australia on March 27th.

Having experienced huge growth within the Asian market over the past few years, the distributor visits are part of Handpicked Wines’ broader Australian wine education strategy for the Chinese market. The visits were also a great opportunity for an Australian brand to engage with the Chinese social media site WeChat, with the distributors creating a lot of content that spanned a breadth of different regions across China over the week.

While in Australia, the groups visited Handpicked’s Chippendale cellar door to taste wines from all its major Australian regions, travelled to Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley for viticultural education during harvest as well as went sightseeing around Melbourne and Sydney. The last of the groups are currently with Handpicked Wines in the Yarra Valley.

As part of the same education program, Handpicked vineyard administration manager, Joanne Winterbottom, who is a WSET Level 4 diploma holder, is also currently in Chengdu at the Chengdu Wine Fair, running a number of educational Australian seminars.