Pieter Terblanche glances at the latest order from his Shanghai sales team: wine labels featuring an exotic menagerie of tigers and other wild animals from an imaginary Africa. He calls them the “critter brands” – but admits they help his wine to sell nicely in China.

“Critters are working,” he muses as he surveys the labels. He had to replace the tigers with cheetahs because there aren’t actually any tigers in Africa, but otherwise the wild-animal designs are another successful foray into the fast-growing Chinese wine market.

In South Africa, as in many other wine-producing countries, China represents the future. Squeezed by low margins and tough competition in Europe and North America, wineries are turning to a fledgling market that could expand swiftly as Chinese wealth increases and its consumer class grows. And the strategy seems to be paying off: South Africa’s wine sales to China soared by 63 per cent last year.

Mr. Terblanche is head of global sales and marketing at Swartland Winery, the latest South African winery to pursue the China dream. Electronics entrepreneur William Wu, a Chinese immigrant to South Africa, purchased 51 per cent of the winery in December and immediately announced plans to target Chinese consumers as they develop a taste for wine for the first time in their history.