In the world of wine, the most influential key opinion leaders (KOLs) are invariably not traditional wine professionals. The country’s top livestreamers are Viya, and Li Jiaqi, who is known as “King of Lipsticks”. Both worked with state-owned Chinese winery GreatWall Winery and sold thousands of cases within a minute.

 

In the wine sector, the most influential personality is a 32-year-old woman called Wang Shenghan, aka Lady Penguin. Though wine is not yet the main source of her company revenue, her marketing-savvy and video-driven wine content on social media platforms such as Douyin, Weibo and WeChat have gained her millions of followers. On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, she talks to her more than 3m followers about such things as the difference between a red wine glass and a white wine glass, how to hold a decanter, or how to choose wine based on lipstick colours. She describes the Merlot grape variety as a “friend next door”, and Riesling as a “fairy in a white cotton dress”. Her shop on Tmall.com is frequently ranked among the top 10 best-performing wine stores during the platform’s annual Global Wine and Spirits Festival.