It all started around the turn of the millennium: For Chinese investors, Bordeaux seemed like a land where gold could be mined. Since their compatriots at home were becoming more and more interested in Bordeaux red wine, the purchase of a château and its vineyards seemed to be a crisis-proof investment: Once a good name for the winery had been established at home in China, the investors calculated that the wine, which was produced with low running costs, could be sold to the wealthy urban elites in China with high profit margins. At that time, celebrities, such as the actress Zhao Wei and the billionaire Jack Ma, also invested in Bordeaux estates.

The high, as it would then turn out, sad point - of this wave was the sale of the renowned Fronsac wine estate Château de la Rivière in 2013 for a presumed sum in the tens of millions. When the seller, French businessman James Gregoire, invited Hong Kong-born buyer Lam Kok for a helicopter ride over the vineyards after the transaction was completed, the helicopter piloted by Gregoire crashed into the Dordogne River, costing the lives of both businessmen and the buyer's 12-year-old son.

Anti-corruption laws curb Bordeaux thirst

Since the Chinese government issued stricter corporate governance guidelines at about the same time, thus removing one reason for buying Bordeaux wines – namely more expensive brands as promotional gifts – exports of Bordeaux wines to China fell by almost a fifth as early as 2014. But also in the lower and medium price segment, the time of growth seems to be – and many wine estate owners who have acquired their château or châteaux as late as a few years ago are selling off the estates again. Bordeaux' daily newspaper "Sud Ouest" quotes an employee of "Christie's" in Bordeaux as saying that there are currently about 50 Chinese-owned wine estates for sale. That would be about every third wine estate owned by Chinese. And an employee of the "SAFER" authority, which monitors the purchase and sale of agricultural land in France, also states in "Sud Ouest" that he is currently not aware of any significant interest on the part of Chinese investors on the buyer side.

The Tibetan Antelope turns back into Château Senilhac

For ease of marketing, some Chinese investors had even given their wineries names from the symbolic world of their homeland, names such as "Lapin Impérial" (imperial hare) or "Antilope tibétaine" (Tibetan antelope). This practice was quite controversial in Bordeaux, with Jean-Marie Garde, chairman of the Pomerol winegrowers' association, expressing the fear that it could damage the reputation of the whole region "if all the great châteaux were to turn into hares and antelopes".

With regard to the "Tibetan antelope", "Sud Ouest" recently quoted Gérard Roi, mayor of Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne in the northern Haut-Médoc, as saying that after the takeover in 2017, the Chinese investor had managed to make the wine an export hit and to spruce up the château and the wine estate. However, all these hopes "collapsed like a soufflé". For a while, not even the vines were properly cared for. In the meantime, the wine is once again offered under its old name.

But it is not the case, Roi adds, that all Chinese properties are badly managed. In the area of his commune, there is another Chinese-owned business, Domaine Andron, and it is doing quite well. The aforementioned Château de la Rivière and the Bellefont-Belcier Grand Cru Classé in St. Émilion, which has also been in Chinese hands for some time, are also known for their unchanged good, or recently, even increasing wine quality.