The Portuguese wine has kept losing its grip on the Macao market in recent years, as its market share plummeted from about 60 percent four years ago to the current share of merely 20 percent, the Macao Post Daily reported on Tuesday.

The dwindling market share was mainly caused by the big casino chains that have opened in Macao since 2002, as these casinos have contacts with the "big buyers", making it easier to purchase more internationally recognized European brands, the daily quoted Jaime Quendera, manager of a Portuguese wine cooperative, as saying.

He made the remark while attending a Portuguese wine tasting held Monday at the official residence of Portugal's consul- general in Macao. The wine tasting is part of the local Portuguese wine importers' efforts to tap into the sector of local casinos, restaurants and hotels.

However, Quendera also said that Macao is still a great place to access wider markets in Asia, and the city is particularly a major destination for tourists from the Chinese mainland, which Portuguese wine makers were eager to tap into.

David Wong, founder of the Macao Culinary Association, also said that he hoped Macao can end up like Las Vegas, which used to be just a place to gamble but is now a major food and wine destination.

Macao has surpassed Las Vegas in terms of gross gaming revenues in recent years. The latest figures showed that the Special Administrative Region (SAR), the only place in China where gaming is legal, reaped record high monthly revenues of over 12 billion patacas (1.51 billion U.S. dollars) in October this year.