How does a bottle of imported wine go to the table

Many people like to have a little wine with their meals. According to data released by the Chinese Customs, the total imported wine volume doubled in the five years from 2013 to 2017. How did these wines come to China from a distant foreign country? Is there any difference between wine customs and other goods customs? The customs officer of Huangpu Customs, under the authority of Xingang Customs, takes you on a customs clearance tour of wine imported from general trade. 

Import Qualifications

The first step to import wine is to obtain import qualifications. For example, importers and exporters from abroad should go to the Chinese Customs for the record in advance. Exporters from abroad should handle the certificates of origin and health certificates in the country of origin. If they are organic wines, they also need to obtain the organic certification of our country. After obtaining qualification, enterprises need to prepare certificates of origin, contracts, invoices, bills of lading, packing lists and labels of wine in Chinese and English. 

Since August 1, 2018, the new version of customs declaration has been officially launched, incorporating the contents of the original customs declaration and inspection declaration. The entry items have been reduced from 229 items to 105 items, the attached documents have been consolidated from 74 items to 10 items, and 102 supervision documents have been simplified to 64 items, thus realizing the declaration of "one big form" goods, simplifying the process and saving the time of enterprise declaration. The Customs will examine the data uploaded by the enterprise after receiving the data uploaded by the enterprise. The special feature of such products as wine is that in the column of specifications and models, the name, processing method, alcohol concentration, grade, year and producing area must be indicated. For customs declarations with preferential tax rates, the original certificate of origin and the whole bill of lading should be strictly examined. Generally speaking, wine imports from Australia, New Zealand, Georgia, Chile and other countries adopt the agreed tax rate, so the "cost-effective" ratio of wine in these countries is relatively high.

According to the situation of goods and the actual needs of law enforcement, combined with the judgment of information system, goods are inspected. Customs inspection is divided into machine inspection and manual inspection. Machine inspection mainly refers to scanning and imaging the goods in the container by transmitting high-voltage electron beam through H986 large container inspection equipment. Through analyzing the machine inspection image, it can judge whether the goods are in conformity with the declaration, whether the vehicles are loaded with prohibited items, and whether the whole process of vehicle inspection is completed by the staff in the control room.

At present, the "Intelligent Map Examination" system operated by Huangpu Customs Pilot Operation has an average of 5 seconds to examine a machine-checked image, with an efficiency of 95%. It can also work 24 hours without interruption, and the supervision work is faster, more accurate and more stable. In addition to verifying whether the goods in the vehicle are in conformity with the declaration, whether there are false reports, concealment and storage, the customs also need to conduct inspection and Quarantine on the goods, check whether the cargo certificates are in conformity, and check whether there are quarantine pests in the container. After checking correctly, sampling inspection was carried out for imported wines from electronic distribution control sampling, focusing on whether they contain biological toxins, pesticide residues, and whether heavy metals exceed the standard.

In the laboratory, the staff analyzed the composition of wine by various instruments. For example, the gas chromatography instrument area is mainly responsible for the detection of methanol, ethanol and pesticide residues in wine. Simultaneous determination of more than 20 organophosphorus pesticides can be achieved, and the maximum residue limits of substances that do not meet the national standards can be found by precise quantitative method. The harmful elements and nutrients in grape wine were mainly detected by spectrometer. For example, atomic absorption spectrophotometer can detect almost all the metal elements in the chemical periodic table. When graphite furnace is used, the detection ability can reach 10-9 orders of magnitude, which is equal to 1 sand-sized metal element in two and a half basketball courts. It can detect all the metal elements. In recent years, 59 batches of unqualified products with cadmium, iron, copper and manganese exceeding the standard, such as wine, have been detected. After passing the inspection, the Customs will examine and file the Chinese labels and issue the inspection and quarantine certificate of entry goods. If the contents of the labels are false or suspected of infringement, they will not be filed.

Tips for selecting imported wines

Each bottle of imported wines on the market should have a Chinese label in addition to the foreign label. The label contains 9 items, including name, raw materials and accessories, alcohol content, filling date, storage conditions, country of origin, dealer and contact information, net content and warning. If you don't see the Chinese label mentioned above, it will be unqualified. Only through inspection, inspection and quarantine qualified wine can enter the domestic market for sale.