Last Friday we visited one our interns at work – we went to the “Chengdu Food and Drinks Fair”. It is the largest fair of its kind in China and brings together hundreds of different wine dealers, beer/spirit companies and food chains here in Chengdu. It was also a very good opportunity for Western beer and spirits companies to enhance their visibility on the Chinese market. The fair was really, really big and for us, from the Chengdu office, it felt that something was definitely going down in the city. The streets were much busier than usual.

Luckily, Niels invited us to his company’s stall at the “Chengdu Food and Drinks Fair”. Niels comes from the Netherlands and he is currently doing an internship with a German wine producer, selling German wine in Chengdu. He’s obviously learnt a lot during his internship as he could explain to us what kind of wine we were drinking, how it was produced, and why it was special and so on. So here we are in front of his company’s stand.

Having tasted some really enjoyable wines with Niels, we decided to walk around the fair. There were quite a few different foreign wine and beer companies from France and Germany. Although the beer they offered was rather standard, we were able to have a sip of each beer at mostly every stall we passed, so it was quite a pleasant visit!

The most interesting part for us was checking out the Chinese companies and how their alcohols differed from European wines and spirits. At one stand, there was a company that sold rice wine which tasted of cheese (well, it reminded us of cheese anyway). So that was actually a rather strange experience…. In yet another hall there were only baijiu companies. From my experience, I only know people who love baijiu or plainly hate the stuff. I am actually from the minority of (young Western) people who enjoy drinking baijiu whilst having Chinese dishes in the evening. So I had a decent sip of Moutai, which is considered to be one of the best baijius of China.

Finally, we let Niels continue with work at the wine stand and headed back home. It was a really nice experience to see both “Western” spirits as well as Chinese drinks all in one place, and to see the differences between them – both in terms of presentation and taste. The next “Chengdu Food and Drinks Fair” is held in spring next year – so if you are interested in doing an internship with a company that is also joining “Chengdu Food and Drinks Fair”, we are happy to arrange an internship for you! Apply Now!