(SCMP) - When Jamie Ritchie joined Sotheby's to start his career as a wine auctioneer a quarter of a century ago, there were relatively few Asian wine customers.

In 2015, Asians are the biggest buyers of wine, both for their parties and for pure investment.

"Asia will continue to be the most important wine-buying market. There are so many Asians who like to enjoy wine but there is no local supply of top-end wine. As such, they will continue to be the biggest buyers in the auction markets in the following years," Ritchie, the chief executive and president of Americas and Asia at Sotheby's Wine, told the South China Morning Post.

Ritchie, a Briton who lives with his wife and two children in New York, visits Hong Kong regularly as the city has become a major wine auction market since 2009. He chatted with the Post at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai where he was preparing for the latest wine auction held in Hong Kong last week.

Ritchie said that in the years since 1990, when he first joined Sotheby's, Hong Kong had always been home to important wine buyers at auction."Back then, China was not yet a market. The only wine auction was held in London, with the buyers mainly Europeans and some Americans and Hongkongers. The buyers at that time were wine lovers who wanted to buy the best wine from auction to drink and there was not yet a concept of buying wine as an investment," he said.

Since then, Asia's burgeoning economies, and the development of a taste for the Western lifestyle in mainland China and other countries in the region, have created a strong demand for fine wine.

People were not just ordering wine to drink but also buying for investment. Those who bought wine at auction could take delivery immediately, then sell later at a higher price. Wine investors can also buy futures products for vintages of Bordeaux, where they will only get the wine two years from now. If the price of the wine increases within those two years, the investor profits.

"Wine collectors are also becoming much younger these days. When I first joined the industry, a typical wine collector used to be 65 years old, but nowadays there are many collectors who are about 40 to 45. The numbers in the younger generation who are interested in wine and food sharing are amazing," said Ritchie.

The explosion of social media might be behind some of these changes, he said, as young people liked to share information about their experiences in wine tasting and their knowledge about wines.

"Technology has played a role in changing the sales and making the wine. In wine auctions, it helps the buyers get the category of wine online quickly while the buyers around the world can submit bids through the internet. It creates a bigger pool [of customers]," Ritchie explained.

"The winemakers also rely on technology to make a better quality of wine at a lower cost. We can buy a US$20 bottle of wine nowadays that is much better-quality than 10 or 20 years ago. Technology is going to continue to affect the winemaking industry."