Moutai’s Horse-year zodiac bottle — widely dubbed “Ma Moutai” — has cooled faster than many expected, turning a routine product launch into a test of the company’s new market management. A printing error spawned an official clarification while secondary-market prices fell sharply, with scalpers reporting a 500-yuan drop in three days. The abrupt reversal has focused attention on whether China’s most prestigious baijiu maker can steer its prized zodiac series away from financial speculation and back toward drinkers and collectors.
The product launch itself was notable for being pragmatic rather than ostentatious. Moutai introduced two versions: a classic edition priced at 1,899 yuan — 600 yuan lower than last year’s snake edition — and a premium “Zhenxiang” edition at 2,499 yuan made by blending more than 200 base barrels. The dual-version strategy is designed to lower the purchase threshold for ordinary consumers while offering an upgraded option for collectors who want higher quality at a modest premium.
On the distribution side Moutai tightened control to blunt speculative buying. The classic bottle was put into daily allocation on the company’s iMoutai platform to broaden access for end consumers, leaving resale prices only about 200 yuan above the official price. The premium edition is being released in timed windows tied to consumption peaks — New Year, Mid-Autumn and other festivals — preserving scarcity without flooding the market and curbing the incentives for hoarding.
These moves reflect a broader shift: the zodiac series is losing its financial-asset sheen. In prior years limited supply plus a rising industry cycle had turned Moutai zodiac releases into speculative plays; early 2024 saw a dragon-year bottle traded at seven to eight thousand yuan on secondary markets. But with Moutai increasing direct-channel supply and Feitian Moutai hovering near its 1,499-yuan suggested price, the price anchors across the product range have stabilised and speculative premiums have waned.
The change is also strategic. Moutai’s 2026 marketisation plan explicitly places zodiac bottles in the ‘‘mid-tier’’ of its product pyramid and instructs the company to stimulate domestic collecting and consumer demand. The objective is clear: recast zodiac releases from short-term investment vehicles into cultural consumption products, where drinking quality and symbolic value, not arbitrage, are the primary attractions.
Short-term frictions persist. Some offline distributors report delayed allocations that have blunted the opportunity to capitalise on the Lunar New Year buying season, and early resale prices for the premium edition have already softened. The market’s memory of the snake edition’s dramatic collapse tempers enthusiasm, making channels cautious about stocking up and dampening the momentum Moutai had hoped to generate.
The Ma Moutai episode also illuminates a wider divergence in China’s spirits market. After Moutai pioneered the zodiac concept in 2014, rivals such as Wuliangye and Luzhou Laojiao followed suit. By 2026 many of those launches have become routine, with muted promotions and tiny sales for weaker brands, underscoring that only the top tier can sustain a premium zodiac narrative. The sector’s trajectory from rapid expansion to quality-driven consolidation suggests the era of easy speculative gains for limited-edition baijiu may be ending.
For consumers the normalization is a win: access at fairer prices and a shift toward beverage quality and cultural meaning. For Moutai the challenge now is managerial — to preserve a sense of scarcity that sustains brand allure while meeting genuine consumer demand and maintaining orderly channels. How well the company balances those pressures will shape not only the next zodiac cycle but the maturation of China’s high-end baijiu market more broadly.