The nation's love for Beaujolais Nouveau is growing quickly, making Taiwan Asia's second largest importer of the fruity French wine after Japan, retailers said.P>
Imports of Beaujolais wines are expected to top 800,000 bottles this year, up from 650,000 last year, and include affordable products available in convenience stores and supermarkets.
"It has become a fad in Taiwan, so wine lovers here have been expecting its arrival and are keen to savor the latest batch of Beaujolais," said Margery Ho (何默真), public relations official of the hypermarket chain RT-Mart (大潤發).
PHOTO: WANG MENG-LUN, TAIPEI TIMES
In keeping with the annual tradition, the wines will be uncorked in three days -- the third Thursday of November.
Although the harvest slumped by 50 percent, the quality of this year's wine, which hails from the Beaujolais wine-growing region south of Burgundy, is said to be comparable to that in 1929, 1947 and 1976, according to the Landis Taipei Hotel.
"It could be the best in the past century," the hotel said in a press release to promote its Beaujolais meal specials.
RT-Mart, which aims to grab a bigger share of the market, plans to present more high-quality Beaujolais this year, while maintaining its overall number of imports at about 150,000, the same as last year.
In addition to the three categories of wine -- Beaujolais, Beaujolais Villages and Beaujolais Crus -- RT-Mart is also offering limited-edition exquisite wines by the French firm Grand Vin Selles, Ho said.
This is aimed at tapping into another niche market, while continuing to promise the lowest prices in Taiwan for Beaujolais wines, she added.
Carrefour SA, the world's second-largest hypermarket operator, also entrusted the winery Georges Duboeuf -- dubbed the "King of Beaujolais" -- to produce the retailer's own-brand Beaujolais wines, which will be available in its outlets worldwide at much cheaper prices, said Dream Lin (林夢紹), public relations manager of Carrefour Taiwan.
Carrefour Taiwan expects to import 60,000 bottles of Beaujolais wines this year, up 30 percent from last year, including vintages from the famous wine-maker Henry Fessy.
Due to cut-throat competition, the retailers are keeping their selling prices top secret, waiting until the last minute to reveal them.
"I don't think the price will go under NT$200 [US$6] a bottle, which happened last year," Lin said, explaining that rising transportation charges this year should keep the prices at a higher level.
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) yesterday announced the launch of the TSMC-UTokyo Lab to promote advanced semiconductor research, education and talent development. The lab is TSMC’s first laboratory collaboration with a university outside Taiwan, the company said in a statement. The lab would leverage “the extensive knowledge, experience, and creativity” of both institutions, the company said. It is located in the Asano Section of UTokyo’s Hongo, Tokyo, campus and would be managed by UTokyo faculty, guided by directors from UTokyo and TSMC, the company said. TSMC began working with UTokyo in 2019, resulting in 21 research projects,
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) yesterday expressed a downbeat view about the prospects of humanoid robots, given high manufacturing costs and a lack of target customers. Despite rising demand and high expectations for humanoid robots, high research-and-development costs and uncertain profitability remain major concerns, Lam told reporters following the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Taoyuan. “Since it seems a bit unworthy to use such high-cost robots to do household chores, I believe robots designed for specific purposes would be more valuable and present a better business opportunity,” Lam said Instead of investing in humanoid robots, Quanta has opted to invest
RSS