Feature: Top Argentine winery aspires for bond with China

For Spaniard winery owner Jose Manuel Ortega Gil-Fournier, China is not just a market, it is also an inspiration with culture, traditions and future.

Leaving his job in a traditional investment bank in 1999, Ortega gambled everything on developing a winery in the western Argentine province of Mendoza at the foot of the Andes mountain range.

"I saw this wonder and decided to abandon everything and dedicate myself to this. We built our land, the houses, the restaurant and now we will build a hotel. After 15 years of hard work, it's a dream come true," said Ortega, who is obsessed with making the best wine in the world.

The winery offers "the best restaurant at a winery" with a 14- metre-deep wine cellar decorated by works of Argentina's most important artists. It will have a five-star-hotel to house the investors who buy between one and three hectares of the land at this winery.

The interview with Xinhua took place in the Uco Valley, 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the city of Mendoza, capital of the province with the same name. At 1,100 meters above sea-level, it has a view of vineyards, snowy peaks and a dry climate.

"We were the first winery in the world to unite passion for wine with people who want to develop their own wine. A businessman could buy a winery, a vineyard with a large investment. Here he can buy one to three hectares, make his own wine with its own label and brand and we manage everything else," said the Spanish entrepreneur.

"Our connection with China began over eight years ago, because of my curiosity and China's potential. We give Chinese classes in the school we have here (for the employees' children)," Ortega said.

For the past five years, Ortega has traveled to China five times a year not only to get to know the market but also to quench his thirst for the Chinese culture. Ortega's recent visit to a high range winery in Shangri-La, in the southern Yunan province inspired him to create a similar project which combines wine culture with tourism.

"China is a big consumer of high range wine in the world and we are looking for our little opening (in the market) from travels to convince the Chinese market and its consumers that France isn't the only interesting (producer of wine). Argentina can also make high quality wines," said Ortega.

"A Chinese investor has called his product Omei Uco. Omei is the name of the mountain in the Chinese province where he was born and we have already sent two harvests to Peru where he is based. With 180,000 to 600,000 U.S. dollars, a person can be an owner," he said.

Ortega told Xinhua that his children take Chinese classes three times a week and they love it. "Several days ago they sang Happy Birthday to me in Chinese. They are four, eight and nine years old. It is a young age where they study with eagerness and they have made me promise to take them to China on holiday next year so we are already preparing for this journey," said the Spanish father of three.

In the wine cellar, Ortega said his winery has exported various containers of wine to the Asian country as a means of promotion.

The "Torrontes" variety has been a success with Chinese consumers, said Otrega who has not only invested in Argentina but also in Chile and the United States.

The Wine Economics Research Center at the University of Adelaide, Australia, has projected that wine consumption in China would grow between 40 percent and 60 percent between 2011 and 2018.

While Argentina is the world's fifth-largest producer of wine, it represents a scant 1.01 percent of China's wine imports, which have seen explosive growth of at least 400 percent in the past five years, said the center.

Ortega told Xinhua that he has an importer in China, "a Chinese businessman who lives between Buenos Aires and China and he helps us to promote the product."

It is hoped that the five-star-hotel with 42 rooms and a spa will bring in more Chinese tourists once it is built. Endite