Chinese buyers are showing increased interest not only in French wines but also in its vineyards and castles.

"/> Chinese buyers are showing increased interest not only in French wines but also in its vineyards and castles.

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Chinese snap up French vineyards

Chinese buyers are showing increased interest not only in French wines but also in its vineyards and castles.

Published: 2 December 2011 09:53 CET

Chinese snap up French vineyards

Megan Mallen

A report in regional daily Sud-Ouest says that Chinese buyers are increasingly looking to own a piece of the Bordeaux region, one of France’s best-known wine areas.

China became the biggest export market for Bordeaux wines in 2010, overtaking the UK and Germany.

Earlier in 2011 the Chinese state-owned conglomerate and owner of the Great Wall wine brand, Cofco, bought a 20-hectare piece of land in the prestigious Lalande de Pomerol region.

Now private buyers are also showing an interest. The newspaper reported on Thursday that while only ten estates have been sold so far, it knew of around 15 more that are about to be added to the list.

“For two years, every real estate agent has been showing Chinese and Hong Kong people round tens of different châteaux,” one agent told the newspaper.

“Often we don’t really know who they are. The buyers might be there or they send someone else.”

When it comes to what they’re looking for, it’s not clear whether the quality of the wine or the beauty of the property is uppermost.

“It’s difficult to know their strategy as it goes in all directions, it’s complicated,” said another expert quoted by the newspaper. “They buy beautiful properties and land and a bit of the charm of France.”

“When an American buys, he’ll take on a lawyer in Bordeaux and a technician to examine the ground and the machinery … With the Chinese, it’s not like that.”

The most recent high-profile Chinese buyer is actress Zhao Wei who reportedly signed a deal to buy the Château Monlot property on Wednesday.

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China derides Copenhagen democracy meet as 'political farce'

Demonstrators gathered outside the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday. Photo: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix

The Copenhagen Democracy Summit was held Monday and Tuesday in the Danish capital and organised by the Alliance of Democracies, an organisation targeted by Beijing sanctions in March and founded by former NATO boss Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

In addition to Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod also participated in the forum by video link, which Beijing said violated “the one-China principle.”

“This summit is a political farce,” the Chinese embassy in Denmark wrote in a statement published on Tuesday. “Inviting those who advocate Taiwan and Hong Kong ‘independence’ to the meeting violates the one-China principle and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” it said.

“Some hypocritical western politicians are good at meddling in other countries’ internal affairs and creating divisions and confrontation in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. They are bound to fail,” it added.

At the conference on Monday, Kofod said it was “deplorable” that Beijing had imposed sanctions on 10 European individuals and organisations in response to EU sanctions on Xinjiang officials over their actions against the Uyghur Muslim minority.

Like most countries, Denmark applies the one-China principle — under which Beijing bars other countries from having simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taipei — though it does maintain relations with Taiwan.

Cut off politically from the rest of China since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the territory is self-governing but is not recognised by
the United Nations.

Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province that will one day return under its control, by force if necessary.

China’s sabre-rattling has increased considerably over the past year, with fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers breaching Taiwan’s air defence zone on a near-daily basis.

“Our government is fully aware of the threats to regional security, and is actively enhancing our national defence capabilities to protect our
democracy,” Tsai told the conference in a video address on Monday. US President Joe Biden is expected to present his China strategy soon, as
calls mount for him to publicly commit to defending Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

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