Wine merchant capitalises on discerning Far-Eastern palates

Perth-based Exel, which employs just seven people, is selling more than 90 per cent of its fine wine to customers in countries such as China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The start-up is shipping as much as 250,000 worth of Bordeaux and other top-end red wines to Asia every month, including a recent blockbuster order for six bottles of 1945 Mouton Rothschild worth 105,000 (90,600).

The business, which is owned by a local private investor, expects to sell even more fine vintages into the Far East during the coming year. Operations manager Russell Wallace said demand was being driven by the relative health of those economies, as well as other cultural factors.

"In China, in particular, there are a lot of wealthy businessmen who want to find the best wines - but unlike in the West, they buy the bottles in order to drink them.

"Across Europe, fine wine is seen as an investment that will be held for anywhere between 10 and 20 years and is only drunk on rare occasions, but in Asia they are purchased and drunk."

The business initially began about two years ago as a collector's hobby that grew out of central Perth restaurant Exel Dining. However, the economic downturn led to the decision to close the restaurant in May, focusing all efforts upon the growing wine merchant business.

Though much of Exel's success so far can be traced to the Far East, the initial move into Asian markets was happenstance, Wallace said.

"Primarily it was really just down to demand," he said. "We had a couple of initial orders from a buyer in China, and they were quite significant orders, so we started stockpiling a bit, and things just grew from there."

Sales in the first nine months of this financial year reached nearly 1.2 million and that is expected to continue rising on the back of growth in Asia.