Mouthing Off | Vinexpo Asia’s Hong Kong return makes sense amid China’s wine boom, but it’s clearly a marriage of convenience

Hong Kong hosted the wine trade show Vinexpo Asia for 20 years, but harsh Covid rules saw organisers move the event to Singapore – supposedly permanently

Now Vinexpo will return to Hong Kong to tap the growing Chinese market for wine. Business is business, after all, and on that front our frenemy can’t compete

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People try wine at the 2018 edition of Vinexpo Asia, in Hong Kong. The event is returning to the city this week after being being held in Singapore, but the move is purely transactional on both sides. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 7:45am, 22 May 2024

Vinexpo Asia is returning to Hong Kong next week.

The three-day event is one of the leading international wine and spirits industry trade shows. It is back at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, in Wan Chai, from May 28 to 30.

In 1998, the French organisers chose Hong Kong as their base for Asian expansion with the first regional Vinexpo conference. Since then it has been a biennial affair, and draws thousands of exhibitors and visitors.

With China’s growing interest in wine, it appeared a perfectly happy and prosperous relationship for two decades.

Chinese buyers of fine wine attend the Vinexpo Asia, in Hong Kong, in 2016. Photo: EPA

But then things got rocky. The 2020 show was cancelled as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world. It was supposed to return in 2022, but Vinexpo scrapped the trade show again when Hong Kong kept its quarantine and mask-wearing rules while other parts of the world started easing up.