'You have to be there to build the brand'

When Anne Cuvelier first went to China about 14 years ago to promote her family's wine business, at a tasting event in Beijing she found that foreign producers and chateau owners vastly outnumbered customers.

Today the situation is totally different, she says.

"People line up outside the venue and wait patiently to get in. The room is fully packed in less than 15 minutes," says Cuvelier, who looks after the marketing operations of her family's Chateau Leoville Poyferre, a second-growth chateau in the Medoc region near Bordeaux.