(Yicai Global) Dec. 5 -- Though tippling wine has become more widespread in China, traditional online wine retailers are finding it difficult to supply market demand.

The imported wine sector has kept growing explosively this year, with the value of imported bottled wine rising more than 40 percent for two consecutive months, per recently-released customs data. 

Much of the sector's growth remains in traditional channels, however, while online wine retailers, which have developed well in recent years, have failed to notch decent growth in the latest round, Yicai Global has learned from vintners. Between January and October, wine imports kept scaling up to 600 million liters, an increase of 19 percent on a year ago, with imports of bottled wine up 15 percent annually to 442 million liters, latest customs data show. Imports of bulk wine, which have surged in the recent two months, have sustained high growth and rose 32 percent per year.

French wine colossus Castel Group's China unit reported respectable growth this year, with its overall business developing in line with the market, as Yin Kai, president of Castel China, told Yicai Global. China imported USD190 million worth of bottled wine in October, up 42 percent from the same period last year, as against a growth rate of 48 percent in September.

The increased monthly rates for September and October may be an incident to lower production in Bordeaux and other world wine-growing regions this year, which prompted importers to stockpile for fear of price hikes, Yin said.

This round of growth in the imported wine sector has lasted for more than a year, with 480 million liters of wine worth USD2.2 billion imported last year, an increase of 22 percent and 17 percent, respectively, on the year before.

Rising consumerism drives growth in the wine business, meaning that, aside from overall industry growth, the optimization of the sector's internal structure also affords room for growth, with the compound growth rate quite high, Yin said. Fine brands and professional wine merchants with sophisticated channel operations naturally enjoy this bonanza, he added.

Despite the rapid upsurge in the volume of wine imports, Yicai Global found that much of the latest round of development comes from traditional suppliers, while online channels are failing to mature as quickly as imagined.

Though leading domestic online wine retailers reported varying degrees of growth in their business, their combined revenue is not high, per public data. 1919 Wine&Spirits Platform Science and Technology Co. [NEEQ:830993], the country's largest online wine retailer, racked up CNY200 million in wine revenue, but CNY1.1 billion in traditional Chinese liquor earnings in the first half of this year. Wine World reported first-half revenue of CNY22 million (USD3.3 million), up 133 percent from a year ago. Its net loss was CNY16 million, and its gross margin fell from 58 to 39 percent.