SHANGHAI -- It was 2006, and David Duckhorn was looking to the future. His prominent Napa Valley family, along with co-investors, was in the process of selling their northern California vineyards for a reported $250 million. Never tired of the industry, Duckhorn bought the much smaller Via Pacifica of New Zealand, an exporter of wines to the United States. Still open to new business ideas, he one day was chatting with Chinese-American friend Steven Zhao at a restaurant in Sebastopol, California about the prospects for wine sales in China. By the end of 2008, the two along with one other partner set up a wine import company in Shanghai.