Answering the old world versus new conundrum

The competition between new and old world wines continues in China. French, Spanish and Italian wines are by far the most popular, with 91 million liters of non-bulk imported wine coming from those countries last year - almost 62 percent of the total.

Only 24.5 million liters, or 23 percent of total imports, came from so-called "new world" nations like Australia and Chile.

Old world wines have an established reputation in China, especially those from France. The key question is whether they are value for money. A blind tasting among colleagues earlier this month aimed to investigate this question.