Posts Tagged“china”

We learned the first day that Taipei is considered a more sophisticated market these days, moreso than Shanghai because they buy more and and more diverse wines, but they buy almost exclusively on “score.” Clearly that’s a generalization, and readers of this site probably would argue that doesn’t seem like sophistication, but this is what we’re dealing with here. On a visit to the Shanghai Wine Exchange we discovered what the high net worth Chinese is doing with his relatively new money — investing in trophy wines, but almost nothing else of any lesser stature. We’ve been trying to build a…

This was not at all the culture shock I was expecting as most of our group arrived at Shanghai Pudong Airport early midday Tuesday. This first day was to get acclimated to the drastic time difference - we lost exactly twelve hours on the way over, so dinner for us was around six in the morning. The city is a stunning mix of hyper-modern and classical, with no sign of the overcrowding one might think exists. Streets are wide and fast, populated by an odd mix of scooters, mini-bikes, bicycles, container trucks, and Audis…lots and lots of Audis, as well…