IT’S the heartland of Spanish wine, but now the Rioja region is looking east to import the world’s most popular wine.

Marques del Atrio, one of the five biggest bodegas in Rioja, will import and distribute China’s Changyu Noble Dragon wine from the end of March.

More than 450 million bottles of the Chinese wine are sold already throughout the world, more than the whole of the Rioja region combined.

The wine is made in Yantai Changyu Group, China’s oldest bodega, founded in 1892.