Considering New Zealand is a hop, skip, and a jump away from Asia, potentially a huge market for the country's wine industry, this news from Wine-Info.com is not that surprising. Actually, it is brilliant and probably should have been considered a long time ago:

New Zealand winemakers are joining forces to launch an assault on the Asian palate, with the latest trade mission targeting Shanghai as a lucrative new market.

Just last week, a group of New Zealand winemakers treated that city's top restaurant and hotel executives to a night of Kiwi wine, hoping it would help prise open a niche for our exporters.

Stephen Bryant, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise's sector manager for wine, said the push into China and across Asia was part of a diversification strategy designed to move the industry away from the traditional markets of the UK, US and Australia.

These three countries currently account for 80 per cent of New Zealand wine exports.

"We are saying we need to ensure we have a better diversification in terms of our markets. Asia is the obvious one - it's [close] to us, and there are rising incomes - there's a growing propensity by consumers to consume Western products, and wine is one that is growing quite steadily."

Bryant said careful research had identified five Asian cities as prime targets. These were Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo.

New Zealand's total wine exports last year were worth $512 million, a growth of 18 per cent by value. For the first time, more than 100 million litres was sold, and the 185,000 tonne vintage was up 30 per cent on the previous year.

MAF estimates that New Zealand wine production will grow at least 10 per cent a year for at least the next decade.

The idea is that a good portion of this increase will be soaked up by the newly affluent wine drinkers across Asia.

Wine stores in Singapore, Hong Kong and China do stock New Zealand wines, but until now there has been little promotion of New Zealand wines as a category.

"We're not saying it's a bonanza - but there's a lot of interest in China, and things are picking up, and as consumption increases, the Chinese infrastructure for distribution and everything has to be built up, as well."