Asia Wine Connection, established in September 1997, is a licensed wine exporter based in Sydney, Australia. The principals include Lester D Solden, an ex-international banker with over 25 years involvement in Asian markets, Guy Vaillant, a renowned sommelier and wine judge for over 18 years in Europe and Australia, and Michael Karpas, a Chartered Accountant with many years of experience in export businesses in both S.Africa and Australia. In addition, the company maintains a representative office in Bangkok, Thailand manned by an ex-pat Australian, Darren Gall , with over 15 years of wine industry experience to help develop correspondents and broaden education in Australian wines within the S.E. Asian markets and has recently appointed a representative for the Japanese market based in Tokyo.

The company exports Australian boutique wines mainly to the expanding wine markets of Asia but also has seen new interest emerging globally for some products, and is gradually expanding its range to include boutique wines from other New World producers especially New Zealand, S.Africa, Chile, and Argentina.

Asia Wine Connection currently has importer/distributor correspondents in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand and more recently in Germany, and Mexico with several other new geographic locations currently under discussion including the North American markets, some European destinations, Mainland China and India.

As the dynamics of the region's wine markets continue to shift and the trends strengthen towards the consumption of New World wines, the company is creating a niche for itself as a non-producer organization operating in the role of the traditional 'negociants'. For Australian products in particular in the Asian region, this has led to significant opportunities for correspondents to be afforded the cost, price and transactional efficiency of bringing together a widely diversified portfolio of styles at all price points making it easier for large scale regional distributors/retailers to organise purchasing using the resources and expertise of Asia Wine Connection as a Supply Chain Manager. This obviates the need for companies themselves capable of direct imports to allocate resources to both research and sourcing of numerous products at one time, thus avoiding time-consuming delays and bureaucratic red tape. Effectively it outsources the identification and procurement of wine products to meet a company's needs. In this context the company has established, and is interested in forging strategic partnerships with large scale enterprises with exclusivity of product.

At this time Asia Wine Connection has a direct connection to over 100 different boutique wineries, with the list of vineyards wishing to work with Asia Wine Connection increasing as new markets open up and their need to export increases. Currently this results in over 800 different wines being exclusively available via Asia Wine Connection for various markets, as each winery produces at least two labels, with usually 4-5 styles per label.

Additionally, the company now has a design capability in-house to establish private labels, which have become an important new adjunct to the growing business. Having the ability to access bulk wines and cleanskins in Australia for private labelling has resulted in several new initiatives at highly competitive prices for the Asian markets akin to those successfully seen in European and U.S. markets in the last few years. Acceptance of Australian product quality standards among Asian markets and a breakdown of bias in favour of French or Italian wines towards the New World fruit driven characters, has generated a high level of confidence for the success of Australian product private labels especially amongst the 'new 'drinkers in the 21-40 age range through the regions key retail organisations.