(PD) - Traveling around the globe to sell Dry Creek Vineyard wine to restaurants and wine shops, John Doxon has learned a few things about wine drinkers’ palates from Stockholm to Shanghai.

For example, Scandinavians love North Coast zinfandel, said Doxon, global sales director for the family-owned winery in Dry Creek Valley. Such insight can provide a boost in the competitive wine marketplace for local vintners. They increasingly rely on selling wine directly to customers because it’s hard to get placed on the crowded shelves of retailers and restaurants.

Approximately 7 percent of Dry Creek Vineyard’s distribution are exports, Doxon said. He has a goal of increasing that to 10 percent. “To be a brand now, you kind of need to be a global brand,” he said.

The foreign appetite for American wine is growing. U.S. wine exports set an all-time record in 2015, and 90 percent of those wines were from California, according to the Wine Institute, the trade group that represents California vintners.

Those exports reached a record $1.6 billion in 2015, a 7.6 percent increase from 2014, according to the trade group. The amount of wine exported also increased to an overall 51.2 million cases, a 4.1 percent rise from 2014.

The top market was European Union countries at $622 million, followed by Canada at $461 million. The remaining markets in the top five include Hong Kong at $97 million, Japan at $96 million and China at $56 million.

Large wine companies have an advantage in venturing into foreign markets, but some medium-sized vintners, such as Wente Vineyards in Livermore and the Crimson Wine Group in Napa, have been able to carve out a niche.

“More and more, small and medium-sized wineries are really focusing on exports,” said Linsey Gallagher, vice president of international marketing for the Wine Institute.