China’s wine imports have been shrinking for years, and 2026 is no different. German wine did not get the memo.

In the first nine months of the year, China imported 4.23 million litres of bottled German wine, 8% more than a year earlier, according to Chinese customs figures reported by Vino Joy News. The value rose faster, by 11%, to US$22.49 million.

Around it, the market kept contracting. China’s total wine imports fell by about 11% in volume in the first half of 2026, which is how Japan overtook it as Asia’s biggest wine buyer. In 2025 they fell by almost 27%.

This is not a one-off

Germany grew last year too. Its bottled wine shipments to China reached about five million litres in 2025, up roughly 10%. When the trade publication WBO went through the 2025 customs data, it picked out two standouts among China’s ten biggest suppliers, both up by double digits: New Zealand and Germany.

It is still a small player. In 2025 Germany supplied nearly 4% of the bottled wine China imported, and about 2% of the money spent on it. But it is a small player gaining ground in a market where most suppliers are losing it.

The number to look at is the price

Divide the value by the volume and German wine reached China at about US$5.32 a litre this year. That is roughly US$4 for a standard bottle, before duty, tax, the importer, the distributor and the shop.

Now set that against the market. In 2025 the average litre of bottled wine imported into China cost about US$9.69, or roughly US$7.27 a bottle. German wine arrives at a little over half the price of the average import.

So whatever is driving this, it is not mainly the expensive end of German wine. The customs figures do not split by grape or style, so nobody can tell you from this data how much is dry Riesling and how much is something sweeter. But an average of four dollars a bottle tells you the typical German bottle landing in China is an everyday one, not a Grosses Gewächs.

The rest of the market is moving the other way. China’s average bottled import price rose by almost 12% in 2025 as volumes fell: fewer bottles, pricier ones. Germany is growing at the affordable end.

And it pays more at the border than its rivals

This is the part we find most interesting. German wine pays a 14% import duty in China, because there is no trade deal between China and the EU. Wine from New Zealand, Chile, Australia and Georgia pays nothing under their free trade agreements, and South African wine has come in duty-free since May. Every bottle, wherever it comes from, then pays a 10% consumption tax and 13% VAT on top.

Run a US$4 bottle through those taxes and the German one comes out at roughly US$5.73 before an importer has added a cent. The same bottle from New Zealand comes out at roughly US$5.02. Germany starts every sale about 70 cents behind, and it is still taking share.

Growing without a fire sale

Compare that with New Zealand, the other standout. In the year to June, New Zealand shipped 72% more wine to China, but the average litre fetched about 28% less, as we worked out from its annual report. That is growth bought with price.

Germany’s price did slip in 2025, by about 7% a litre, but it is up 3% on the same months of last year and sits at around US$5.30. That is a wobble, not a fire sale.

Germany is about to push harder

From 10 to 12 November, around 45 German wineries and importers will show at ProWine Shanghai, in a German pavilion backed by Berlin’s agriculture ministry. More than ten of them are new to China, according to Vino Joy. We would bet on a lot of Riesling being poured.

What it means if you just drink wine

If you have never bought German wine because the labels read like a legal document, take this as a nudge. The everyday end is where Germany is winning in China, and it is where the value is for the rest of us too.

There is a food reason as well. An off-dry Riesling Kabinett, often around 8 to 9% alcohol with real sweetness, is one of the few wines that copes with chilli: the sugar softens the burn and the low alcohol does not fan it. That makes it an easy bottle to put next to Sichuan or Hunan cooking, though the customs data cannot tell us whether that is what Chinese buyers are doing with it.

What we are watching

Whether Germany finishes 2026 above last year’s five million litres. It needs well under a million litres in the last quarter to get there, so it is on course.

And the duty. As long as EU wine pays 14% in China and its main rivals pay nothing, every German bottle there starts the race behind.

Sources: Vino Joy News on German wine imports and ProWine Shanghai, WBO on China’s 2025 wine imports, German wine’s 2025 import figures in China, China Briefing on wine import duties, the German Pavilion at ProWine Shanghai 2026

Hero photo: the Mosel loop at Piesport, Germany, by Touriste, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.