Use the pulldown menus to visit other Food Central sections:
Recipes ---------- Today Recipe Swap	Resources ---------- Additives Alcohol Beer Beverages Coffee Dairy Fat Fruit Grains Herbs Italian Meat Organic Seafood Snacks Southern Sweets Tea Veggies Vitamins	Restaurants ---------- Atlanta Baltimore Boston Chicago Dallas Denver Detroit Fort Worth Houston Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami Minneapolis New Orleans NYC Orlando Philly Phoenix Pittsburgh Salt Lake San Antonio San Diego San Fran Seattle St. Louis Wash, D.C. ---------- Amsterdam Athens Bangkok Beijing Berlin Brussels Cairo Copenhagen Dublin Florence Frankfurt Hong Kong London Madrid Mex City Montreal Moscow Munich Nairobi Paris Prague Rio Rome Singapore St. Pburg. Sydney Tokyo Toronto Vienna Zurich

BEIJING (CNN) -- After years of negotiations, China is one step closer to entering the World Trade Organization after agreeing to cut tariffs and open markets. One of the markets benefitting from the agreement is the wine industry.

However, it could take some work to make it pay off.

"It think any company that wants to sell in China better think in terms of ten years investment in time and effort to get to know all the agencies and basically build up your Chinese staff and expect business to never be close to what it's like in the United States and Europe," said Carl Crook, Managing Director of Montrose.

A wine exhibition in Beijing last week allowed many wineries to introduce their goods to the Chinese market.

	Wine.101
Wine Labels Learn how to read them. Wine Prices Find out how much you'll pay. Wine Varietals Use our glossary. Alcoholic Drinks Compare the nutritional value of wine against other alcoholic beverages. Message Board Name your favorite wines Champagne What you need to know for 2000

In the past, tariffs pushed the price of imported wine 65 percent higher. Under the new agreement, tariffs will eventually be lowered to 17 percent.

But foreign wine distributors say there are still some significant obstacles.

"The biggest problem that we have in China is being able to traditionally finance our business because there is no way of funding our inventories," said Montrose president Dave Henderson.

Still, the prospect of one billion additional customers is expected to drive competition between wine exporters.