Winemaker Steph O'Dea knew he had a lot to learn about Chinese drinking habits when he first targeted the market - nonetheless, he was taken aback by the custom of drinking wine by the shot.

Hailing from the central western NSW town of Cowra, the winemaker soon had a gilded chance to acquaint himself with the custom.

"We did a wine dinner for 400 people at a hotel at Guangzhou and we had to go round and cheers all of them that was hard!"

Mr O'Dea is one of a growing band of winemakers proving Australia feeds more than China's appetite for zinc and nickel.

Backed by the Australian government's Austrade agency, many winemakers are setting up shop on the Chinese mainland, peddling a variety of reds to the growing Chinese middle class.

Austrade chief economist Tim Harcourt said rising purchasing power, backed by robust economic growth and further developments in China's infrastructure were factors fuelling the growth in demand for wine.

Such is the market potential that Austrade and the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation have established the China-Australia Wine Importer Network.

One initiative will be an online marketing site. There will also be a new scholarship program for selected Chinese wine students.

Steph O'Dea has enjoyed the assistance of Austrade and will move to China on Tuesday to more aggressively target the market, funded in part by an Export Market Development Grant.

But he concedes luck was largely responsible for his Windowrie Estate dipping its toe in the rapidly expanding Chinese market.

"Through a friend, a meat trader, we sent some wine over to China about four and a half years ago ... we got paid, there were no problems."

When that relationship ended, the family went to an Austrade-organised wine tasting in Guangzhou, making contact with a distributor.

That reunited the O'Deas with the burgeoning market. In three and a half years, Windowrie has gone from shipping one 1,180-case container to eight a year.

Mr O'Dea hopes his in-country presence will increase the volume to 12 containers with a greater proportion of premium wines.

"Value's gone up by probably 20 per cent since we introduced a premium product - it's an hourglass market in China.

"If they're going out somewhere important, they'll throw $US100 at the problem and know that they'll get a wine that everyone will be impressed with."

To date, the French have the greatest hold over the market. Mr O'Dea estimates the distributor he deals with has 58 per cent of his business with French winemakers while Australians constitute about eight per cent.

And the potential for growth is enormous. At recent roadshow in the Fujian province only two people in a packed room raised their hand when asked if they'd tasted wine.

"It's a market that just wasn't there three years ago," Mr O'Dea said.

So will the shot drinking custom take hold in Cowra? "I think they're just doing reasonably well with the old method we've borrowed from the French and filling they're glass to the top!"