Defense: Brittany Norwood ‘lost control’ in attack on Jayna Murray in yoga store

Brittany Norwood lost control the night she killed her co-worker at a Bethesda yoga store, her defense attorney said Wednesday as the high-profile trial began.

Norwood, 29, and co-worker Jayna Murray, 30, got into a “horrific fight” that March night, Douglas Wood told jurors during his opening statement. He said that Norwood grabbed makeshift weapons from the store and that Murray was dead within 15 minutes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Brittany Norwood lost it,” Wood said. “There’s no doubt about that. She lost it. She lost control.”

Wood’s explanation Wednesday marked the first time Norwood’s legal team has laid out her defense in the murder case. The admissions reflect overwhelming evidence tying Norwood to the killing. The defense’s hope: that jurors conclude that things started as a fight between the women and that Norwood never had the intent required for a first-degree-murder conviction.

The distinction could make a big difference. In Maryland, premeditated murder carries the possibility of life with no chance for parole. Second-degree murder carries a maximum of 30 years in prison with a chance for release after 15 years.

Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy described what he characterized as a brutal and prolonged attack that left hundreds of wounds. He told jurors in his opening statement that Norwood cracked Murray over the head with a foot-long metal bar that was part of a merchandise rack, chased her through the store and kept pounding on her as she fell to the floor.

Norwood apparently used a hammer, a wrench, a knife and a peg used to hold up a mannequin in the attack, he said.

On top of that, the prosecutor said, Norwood tried to strangle Murray.

“This is the rope,” McCarthy said, holding up the bloodstained item. “And you can see the hair, Jayna’s hair, hanging on the rope.”

At one point on that night, he said, an employee at the Apple Store next-door to Lululemon Athletica heard a woman’s voice cry out:“Oh God, please help me.” A worker pounded on the wall but did not take further action, he said.

In the end, Murray suffered at least 322 wounds, 107 of which were defensive wounds inflicted as she tried to use parts of her body — including her hands and forearms — to shield herself, McCarthy said. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy said she had never seen so many defensive wounds, he told jurors.

“On March the 11th of this year, she savagely ended the life of Jayna Murray,” McCarthy said. “Today we begin the process of holding her accountable for the crime she committed . . . first-degree, premeditated murder.”

Under Maryland law, premeditation can happen within seconds. The longer McCarthy is able to draw out the attack in jurors’ minds, the stronger his case becomes.

“The defense has a very tough battle on their hands,” said Victor Del Pino, a defense attorney and former Montgomery prosecutor who watched the proceedings and is not involved in the case.

Norwood’s defense lawyers tried to plant the idea that she had lost her ability to think that night. “What they’re trying to do is minimize the culpability, based on her state of mind,” Del Pino said.

McCarthy anticipated such a defense and began the trial by quickly drawing a distinction between Murray and Norwood. He called the former an “extraordinary young woman” pursuing two master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University at the time of the crime. The first photo he showed jurors, projected on a large screen, was of Murray’s smiling face.

The second photo was of Norwood, with a dour expression, taken on one of the nights police questioned her.

Families of both women, including their parents, sat in the third row of the courtroom separated by the middle aisle. The trial is expected to last about eight days.

McCarthy, a former high school teacher who has prosecuted more than 100 murder trials, slowly walked jurors up to the morning of March 12, when Murray was found dead inside the store and Norwood, discovered tied up in a bathroom. Norwood would later tell detectives they had been attacked by masked men who slipped into the store after closing.

Police at first considered Norwood a victim but discovered that her story was part of a detailed coverup, McCarthy told jurors.

Norwood staged a robbery and tossed mops, brooms and chairs around the room, he said. McCarthy said she cut Murray’s pants to make it appear that she had been sexually assaulted. And he suggested that she used a pair of men’s shoes to track blood around the store — trying to make it appear that a large man had been there.

But Wood said Norwood wasn’t cunning after the killing, as McCarthy maintained.

“Things that Brittany Norwood did after this were totally inept,” said Wood, who has been a defense attorney in about 75 murder cases. “They show someone, we submit, who got involved in a nightmarish situation, a nightmare, and had this sort of imagination, or this explanation of what happened, and it was full of holes because there was no premeditation, deliberation and willfulness.”

Motorcycle racer Marco Simoncelli killed in crash Sunday, one week after Dan Wheldon's IndyCar death

Marco Simoncelli, a rising MotoGP star, died Sunday at the same Malaysian circuit where the Italian won the 250cc world title in 2008. He was 24.

Nicknamed 'Super Sic' and sporting a mop of curly hair, Simoncelli was predicted by many to be a future MotoGP world champion. He died a week after Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon was killed in a 15-car accident in the IndyCar finale at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Simoncelli lost control of his Honda at turn 11 four minutes into the Malaysian MotoGP. After regaining partial grip, Simoncelli's bike swerved across the track - and into the path of American Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi of Italy.

"Marco was a strong rider and he always pushed hard," said Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso of Italy. "We raced together since we were kids, I saw him always pushing to the maximum, he crashed many times, but without major injuries, he seemed invincible. What happened today seems impossible."

PHOTOS: ATHLETES GONE TOO SOON

Rossi had been one of the earliest riders to praise Simoncelli's desire to win.

"Going into a duel with him is like going into a fight with someone bigger than you," Rossi said. "You know he's going to take you."

Simoncelli was born on Jan. 20, 1987, in Cattolica in eastern Italy. He developed a passion for the sport at a young age and started racing in the Minibike Championships when he was 7.

He won the European 125cc title in 2002, the same year in which he made his debut in the 125cc World Championship, moving to the global competition full time the following season.

Simoncelli finished 21st that year but improved in 2004, when he moved up to 11th and earned his first win - the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez.

In 2005, Simoncelli joined the Nocable.it Race team. He won in Jerez again and totaled six podium finishes, ending the season - and his time in 125cc - in fifth place.

Ads add up for airlines, but some fliers say it's too much

For a cool $14 million, you can advertise for a year on the exterior of every Spirit Airlines jet.
If that's too steep, consider plunking down $196,000 for three months of ads on the overhead bins in Spirit's planes, $119,000 for ads on the tray tables or $18,500 for ads on air-sickness bags.

Spirit, along with Europe's leading cut-rate airline Ryanair, are unashamed industry leaders at generating ancillary revenue by seemingly renting every inch of in-flight display space to advertisers.

But they're just leading the way. A growing number of U.S. airlines — perhaps emboldened by billions of dollars of extra revenue collected annually for bag fees — are reaching out to advertisers, too.

Ads are appearing not only on overhead bins, seat backs and tray tables but on flight attendants' aprons, snack boxes and napkins.

And in announcements by flight crews and even in safety videos.

That's sacrilege to some fliers who view a plane — and a few hours alone in the air without a cellphone or other interruption — as a respite from life on the ground, the office, home or even the airport. To and from the boarding gate, travelers face ads in taxis, at ticket kiosks, on airport walls, billboards and digital screens, in jetways and on baggage carousels.

"I get aggravated by advertising during the flight," says Memphis-based frequent flier Trey Block, the chief financial officer of a chemical distribution company. "Anywhere inside a cabin is inappropriate."

Block and frequent business traveler Michael Sommer, of Jacksonville, say they were annoyed by a Lincoln automobile commercial that was shown before Delta Air Lines' pre-flight safety video.

"Safety should be the primary concern, and if it's Delta's priority, then why distract someone's attention from the video screen?" says Sommer, who works as a consultant. "As soon as I see the advertisement, I look away and go back to what I was doing."

This month, Delta added a welcome by CEO Richard Anderson and began running the Lincoln commercial after the safety demonstration. That doesn't appease Sommer.

"I pay for a ticket to get from point A to point B safely," he says. "If they want to bombard me with advertising, then give me a discount."

A discount isn't likely. Nobody has exact figures on how much airlines make selling advertising. Airlines don't divulge it. But the revenue is large enough that no marketing expert foresees a rollback.

Airlines realize airfares cannot be the sole source of revenue and are constantly looking for new sources, says Michael Houston, an associate dean at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

"If they can attract more advertising revenue, they will be in a better position to keep airfares from going up too rapidly," he says.

Backlash at ads? 

Some marketing experts warn that the airlines may be going too far.

Marketing consultant Bruce Silverman, a former creative director at three of the largest ad agencies, says many frequent fliers "regard their in-flight experience as their private time, when they can hold normal intrusions of the outside world at bay."

The growth of in-flight advertising "is repellent to these passengers" — an "insult" to paying customers, he says.

"There is already too much advertising clutter in the world," Silverman says. "I truly believe advertisers who choose to intrude on airline passengers are likely to lose — not gain — customers."

Tobe Berkovitz, an associate professor of advertising at Boston University, likens the aircraft cabin to a movie theater and says "airplanes have become one of many environments where advertising clutter has proliferated."

He says moviegoers years ago complained about having to watch commercials after buying tickets, but theater owners didn't stop reaching for the extra revenue.

"It's the same for airlines," Berkovitz says. "At least you could walk out of a movie. Good luck walking out of an airplane."

Some business travelers say magazines — in which readers can choose whether to look at ads — should be the only place for them in cabins.

"I would like to see the advertising restricted to the airline's magazine," says Robert Milk, a management consultant in Glen Allen, Va. "The remainder is garish and a turnoff."

Houston, of the University of Minnesota, says too much advertising aimed at fliers "could certainly backfire," but it is unclear whether an airline's image would suffer.

"The backlash could be against the advertiser," he says.

Always seeking revenue 

Neither the airlines nor advertisers seem concerned about any pushback.

If anything, airlines are looking for more ways to sell ads, because they like the revenue, and advertisers like their captive audience.

Revenue from airline tickets, advertising and other sources such as fees doesn't cover airlines' operating costs, says Steve Lott, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association of America, which represents U.S. airlines.

"Airlines need to be sustainably profitable to be able to invest in their people, their product and continue to serve markets," he says. "As with other modes of transportation and other industries, including sports and entertainment, advertising revenue helps offset the high costs faced by the airline industry."

Carol Thiel, American Airlines' managing director of marketing solutions, says the carrier's in-flight advertising "is a win for everyone."

Passengers receive special offers, such as free in-flight Wi-Fi or bonus frequent-flier miles, and advertisers can share information on their products and brands, she says. "And the airline benefits from having a customer that is more engaged, while generating some incremental revenue."

In-flight advertising is effective because the traveler is captive on the plane and there are "limited distractions," says Ryan Matway, president of Air Advertainment. His company provides the snack boxes with display ads that US Airways gives, free, to passengers.

Matway says the snack boxes create goodwill, because passengers don't have to pay for them. They're more effective than a quick 15-second commercial, because they may sit for 15 minutes in front of a passenger, he says.

GuestLogix, which provides airlines with handheld credit card readers, last year launched a service that prints advertisements on receipts issued to passengers.

"Airline passengers are among the greatest consumers in the world," the company says. "They are focused shoppers with a strong appetite to purchase."

Advertising in aircraft "is a unique way to reach a very affluent customer and allows a brand to differentiate its delivery channel over a competitor," Thiel says. "For advertisers, an aircraft can be an effective medium, because it allows them to inform the public about their products at the right time in a relatively uncluttered medium."

Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Misty Pinson says on-board ads have the highest ad recall rate of all media.

"These results are unachievable with traditional advertising mediums," she says. "We provide an environment where cellphones are turned off and the consumer is stationary with the ability to focus on nothing but your brand for an average of three hours."

On Nov. 1, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority will begin six months of advertising in Spirit jets on overhead bins, middle-seat tray tables, bulkheads, boarding passes and ticket jackets.

Nasdaq will advertise on the aisle and window tray tables for the next three months. The Colombian region of Quindío begins advertising on seat back inserts next month, and flight attendants are wearing aprons advertising the Colombian beach-resort city Cartagena de Indias.

Setting limits on ads 

Still, some airlines say they're conscious about not bombarding passengers. And some are careful about who they let advertise.

Southwest tries "not to hit customers with too many advertising messages," says spokeswoman Ashley Dillon. "Our goal is to keep the messages travel-related and focused on Southwest products."

The airline has a long-term partnership with SeaWorld, and three airplanes painted with Shamu, a killer whale. In the past, Southwest painted a Slam Dunk One aircraft for the National Basketball Association and other aircraft for states it served.

JetBlue has planes painted for business partner DirecTV and two sports teams it sponsors, the New York Jets football team and the Utah-based soccer team Real Salt Lake.

Southwest and JetBlue say their planes are painted only for marketing partners and sponsors, and no ad space is for sale on the exterior of their jets.

Other companies' advertising on JetBlue's in-seat TV and seat-back cards enables the airline to provide passengers with free amenities, including 36 channels of in-seat TV and name-brand snacks and drinks, says spokeswoman Allison Steinberg.

"Advertising helps us invest our funds into the product, so we get a better experience for the customer," she says.

US Airways, which has planes painted for four NFL teams it sponsors, says advertising is "an important source of revenue" that can be found, among other places, on tray tables and boarding passes.

Such advertisers as Verizon, Samsung, Yoplait, Mercedes-Benz and the History Channel have displayed ads on the airline's tables.

Jan Slater, a professor of advertising at the University of Illinois College of Media, says airports "have long been a prime advertising opportunity," but advertisers have to be more cautious about linking up with airlines.

"The advertiser is immediately aligning itself with the airline brand — and that is not always advantageous," says Slater, who is an interim dean at the university's College of Media.

"If the airline does not provide good service, has long delays, has a history of safety violations, charges for every single thing — these may be elements that another brand does not want to be associated with," Slater says.

Though many business travelers say they're bothered by the growing amount of advertising aimed at them, others aren't.

Mitch Fong of Mill Valley, Calif., says he's "not opposed to any of the advertising" he has seen, and he doesn't mind advertising on the carry-on baggage storage bins.

"The only objection I could foresee is the signage at an airport getting so cluttered I couldn't find the necessary information," says Fong, a vice president in the financial services industry.

Frequent flier Steven Gordon of Virginia Beach, has no problem with airport ads or some in-flight ads.

"Hey, isn't everything for sale to advertisers in this country?" he says.

Olympus Shares Plummet

TOKYO—Shares of Olympus Corp. fell as much as 24% Monday morning as an abrupt ouster of its foreign chief executive clouded prospects for the Japanese company's earnings and triggered an immediate string of brokerage downgrades.
The heavy selloff sent the stock to the lowest level since May 2009, as both foreign and domestic investors winced at the growing uncertainty, stoked by fresh questions raised by the ousted executive Michael Woodford about the company's governance practices.

In a weekend interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Woodford said he sent a letter to the imaging-equipment's chairman raising questions about the prices and advisory fees paid in a series of acquisitions in the years before he joined Olympus's board.

Olympus said Monday that its mergers-and-acquisitions deals "all go through appropriate procedures" and take place after "appropriate accounting practices."

"As we have explained before, (Mr. Woodford) was removed from his posts because of major differences in the direction and style of management from other senior executives, which caused difficulties in management decision making," said Olympus spokesman Yoshiaki Yamada.

Olympus, which makes cameras and medical equipment, said Friday it fired 51-year-old Mr. Woodford, the company's first non-Japanese chief executive, due to a clash in management style with other senior executives.

"If it's just a CEO resignation, we can expect a rebound in shares. But it's difficult to invest in this stock now since we don't know what's going to come out from here," Monex Inc. senior market analyst Toshiyuki Kanayama said.
Nomura Securities lowered its rating on the stock to Neutral from Buy and slashed its target price to ¥2,000 ($26) from ¥3,300, saying Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, who took over as president, is unlikely able to push through cost-cutting measures that he couldn't deliver over the past decade.

"With the firing of Mr. Woodford, who had been a strong proponent of cost cutting, we no longer have any expectations of earnings improvement resulting from bold cost reductions in FY 2012 onward," Nomura analyst Motoya Kohtani wrote in a client note.

JPMorgan Securities immediately cut its operating profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2013 to ¥60 billion from ¥70 billion, also citing cost-cutting uncertainties and the risk of intensified competition in the mirrorless camera market. House lowered its rating to Neutral from Overweight.

Olympus shares extended Friday's 18% drop and briefly went limit-down to ¥1,545. At 0130 GMT, shares were down 23% at ¥1,575.

Johnny Depp falls to the ground in Hollywood after late night out

Did Johnny Depp take his role in "The Rum Diary" a bit too seriously?

The 48-year-old actor, who plays a booze-loving journalist in the upcoming film based on a Hunter S. Thompson novel, took a spill outside of a Hollywood hot spot Saturday night -- and it was caught on film.

Depp was spotted by Hollywood.tv leaving the restaurant 25 Degrees when he and a friend who was escorting him to his car tumbled onto the Los Angeles sidewalk.

DEPP'S DREAMY BUT WHO ARE HOLLYWOOD'S OTHER HUNKS?

Depp managed to get off the ground, sign an autograph for a fan and climb into his waiting car before flashing an odd sign at paparazzi.

Perhaps the actor was celebrating the recent news that he'll be producing – and perhaps starring in – an upcoming Dr. Suess biopic. Or drinking away the sorrow of his recent gaffe, complaining to Vanity Fair that sitting for a photo shoot is like "being raped."

The Science of Awkward: Human Interaction in America

Walking the streets of New York City, photographer Richard Renaldi felt fascinated by large groups of strangers and how they seemed to relate and interact with one another. In his ongoing series, Touching Strangers, Renaldi explores this relationship by pairing unacquainted individuals for a portrait with one stipulation: the subjects must physically interact in some manner.

“I think it reveals a lot about body language,” says Renaldi. “There is clear hesitation in some of the images, and other times, you are surprised at how comfortable they are.” Often posing his subjects in a way one might for family or couple photos, Renaldi attempts to capture an “implied narrative,” bringing a new complexity to portrait-making and visual storytelling. “My objective was to bring an unpredictable variable in a very traditional photographic formula—to create a spontaneous and fleeting relationship between strangers,” he said.
Inspired by an image from an earlier project, Bus Travelers, Renaldi found something magnetic about the subtle interaction between subjects in the photograph. “I really liked that picture and kept going back to it,” he says. “I kept thinking about how this one individual related to the other in the image—but also how I could extend that challenge.”

Sometimes the shoots require a bit of direction from the photographer. “Their inclination would generally be to just put their arm around each other or hold hands,” Renaldi says. “That’s sort of the most common kind of idea about touch and because I want to push this project—and I want to push the interactions between people—I needed to become more involved. The fact that someone has agreed to do it obviously means that they are somewhat open, but that does not mean that they’re going to totally cuddle up for me.”

Renaldi hopes to turn the series into a book, but given the unlimited options for portrait settings, the photographer says it has sometimes been tricky to stay on track with the concept. “I am really working hard this summer on making more and more [images] so I can get enough to publish it,” he says. “On the other hand, I keep coming up with new ideas and different scenarios and locations. This could be a whole life long project and it could go into other new directions.”

Richard Renaldi is a New York based photographer who specializes in documentary portrait projects. To see more of his work, including the aforementioned series, Bus Travelers, visit his website here.

Coming Soon: The Drone Arms Race

WASHINGTON

AT the Zhuhai air show in southeastern China last November, Chinese companies startled some Americans by unveiling 25 different models of remotely controlled aircraft and showing video animation of a missile-armed drone taking out an armored vehicle and attacking a United States aircraft carrier.

The presentation appeared to be more marketing hype than military threat; the event is China’s biggest aviation market, drawing both Chinese and foreign military buyers. But it was stark evidence that the United States’ near monopoly on armed drones was coming to an end, with far-reaching consequences for American security, international law and the future of warfare.

Eventually, the United States will face a military adversary or terrorist group armed with drones, military analysts say. But what the short-run hazard experts foresee is not an attack on the United States, which faces no enemies with significant combat drone capabilities, but the political and legal challenges posed when another country follows the American example. The Bush administration, and even more aggressively the Obama administration, embraced an extraordinary principle: that the United States can send this robotic weapon over borders to kill perceived enemies, even American citizens, who are viewed as a threat.

“Is this the world we want to live in?” asks Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Because we’re creating it.”

What was a science-fiction scenario not much more than a decade ago has become today’s news. In Iraq and Afghanistan, military drones have become a routine part of the arsenal. In Pakistan, according to American officials, strikes from Predators and Reapers operated by the C.I.A. have killed more than 2,000 militants; the number of civilian casualties is hotly debated. In Yemen last month, an American citizen was, for the first time, the intended target of a drone strike, as Anwar al-Awlaki, the Qaeda propagandist and plotter, was killed along with a second American, Samir Khan.

If China, for instance, sends killer drones into Kazakhstan to hunt minority Uighur Muslims it accuses of plotting terrorism, what will the United States say? What if India uses remotely controlled craft to hit terrorism suspects in Kashmir, or Russia sends drones after militants in the Caucasus? American officials who protest will likely find their own example thrown back at them.

“The problem is that we’re creating an international norm” — asserting the right to strike preemptively against those we suspect of planning attacks, argues Dennis M. Gormley, a senior research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh and author of “Missile Contagion,” who has called for tougher export controls on American drone technology. “The copycatting is what I worry about most.”

The qualities that have made lethal drones so attractive to the Obama administration for counterterrorism appeal to many countries and, conceivably, to terrorist groups: a capacity for leisurely surveillance and precise strikes, modest cost, and most important, no danger to the operator, who may sit in safety thousands of miles from the target.

To date, only the United States, Israel (against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza) and Britain (in Afghanistan) are known to have used drones for strikes. But American defense analysts count more than 50 countries that have built or bought unmanned aerial vehicles, or U.A.V.’s, and the number is rising every month. Most are designed for surveillance, but as the United States has found, adding missiles or bombs is hardly a technical challenge.

“The virtue of most U.A.V.’s is that they have long wings and you can strap anything to them,” Mr. Gormley says. That includes video cameras, eavesdropping equipment and munitions, he says. “It’s spreading like wildfire.”

So far, the United States has a huge lead in the number and sophistication of unmanned aerial vehicles (about 7,000, by one official’s estimate, mostly unarmed). The Air Force prefers to call them not U.A.V.’s but R.P.A.’s, or remotely piloted aircraft, in acknowledgment of the human role; Air Force officials should know, since their service is now training more pilots to operate drones than fighters and bombers.

Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis for the Teal Group, a company that tracks defense and aerospace markets, says global spending on research and procurement of drones over the next decade is expected to total more than $94 billion, including $9 billion on remotely piloted combat aircraft.

Israel and China are aggressively developing and marketing drones, and Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan and several other countries are not far behind. The Defense Security Service, which protects the Pentagon and its contractors from espionage, warned in a report last year that American drone technology had become a prime target for foreign spies.

Last December, a surveillance drone crashed in an El Paso neighborhood; it had been launched, it turned out, by the Mexican police across the border. Even Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, has deployed drones, an Iranian design capable of carrying munitions and diving into a target, says P. W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, whose 2009 book “Wired for War” is a primer on robotic combat.

Late last month, a 26-year-old man from a Boston suburb was arrested and charged with plotting to load a remotely controlled aircraft with plastic explosives and crash it into the Pentagon or United States Capitol. His supposed co-conspirators were actually undercover F.B.I. agents, and it was unclear that his scheme could have done much damage. But it was an unnerving harbinger, says John Villasenor, professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. He notes that the Army had just announced a $5 million contract for a backpack-size drone called a Switchblade that can carry an explosive payload into a target; such a weapon will not long be beyond the capabilities of a terrorist network.

“If they are skimming over rooftops and trees, they will be almost impossible to shoot down,” he maintains.

It is easy to scare ourselves by imagining terrorist drones rigged not just to carry bombs but to spew anthrax or scatter radioactive waste. Speculation that Al Qaeda might use exotic weapons has so far turned out to be just that. But the technological curve for drones means the threat can no longer be discounted.

“I think of where the airplane was at the start of World War I: at first it was unarmed and limited to a handful of countries,” Mr. Singer says. “Then it was armed and everywhere. That is the path we’re on.”

How to Invest in the Booming Chinese Wine Industry

With a population of 1.3 billion, China is the largest potential market for wine in the world. At the moment, the Chinese don't drink a lot of wine—about.5 liters annually per capita, as opposed to 55 liters in France. But that's changing fast: the yearly growth rate of Chinese wine consumption is about 15 percent. Worldwide, it's roughly 1 percent.



For a foreigner, taking the plunge and investing in a winery in China is not easy. Here are 12 tips from those who have done it.
Have Deep Pockets



Don’t expect cash flow from your new winery for at least six years. After planting the vines, it takes four years to get the first decent harvest, then a minimum of another year or two to produce the wine. During that time you are also building a winery. Investing in an existing operation—including updating equipment, refining the wine-making process or expanding production—is likely to be more limited in scope and cost.
Know the Wine-Making Process


If all you know about wine is how to drink it, start reading books, Google “enology” and “viticulture,” get familiar with details like trellising methods and fermenting techniques.


Then visit with winery owners to understand the big picture of vineyards and wine-making. You don’t have to know as much as your winemaker, but you have to know the fundamentals.