During the Bordeaux en primeur tastings in 2011, when thousands of wine professionals from across the world travelled to the region to assess the year's offerings, the estates offered vintage reports in three languages - French, English and Chinese. Bordeaux winemakers also recently published a recipe book pairing wines with Chinese dishes, suggesting, for example, a Saint-Emillon for pig's feet.
When Zhang bought Chateau du Grand Moueys earlier this year, it had been languishing on the market for five years. The previous owners, the aristocratic Bomer family from Germany, had been hard pressed to find takers for the Chateau's €12 million price tag. Although the final price is undisclosed, Zhang's French staff say he paid a "fair price."
Karine Lemaitre, Chateau du Grand Moueys' oenologue in charge of wine production, is excited about the possibilities of Zhang's investment. But although Lemaitre is eager to experiment, she recognizes the challenges of foreign ownership - the biggest being the inability to communicate directly with Zhang. The only French he can muster is a barely recognizable, if enthusiastic, "oui!" Much is lost in translation, the local staff complain about the linguistic abilities of his translator and, as a result, decisions are delayed.
Zhang may be a newcomer to the world of French wines, but is not new to beverages. As head of the Ningxiahong group, he's China's emperor of goji berry drinks. Goji, a small red berry, has a long history of medicinal uses in China. Ningxiahong produces 30 million bottles of goji alcohol annually.
Like many Chinese entrepreneurs of his generation, he's a self-made man. He was born in 1963, a few years before the start of the Cultural Revolution, in an obscure town in one of China's poorest provinces, Ningxia. His mother tilled the fields, while his father worked with the local railways.
Zhang didn't attend university. Instead, armed with a technical diploma he landed an accounting job with a state-owned enterprise in 1983. By 1996 he'd made the leap to running a baijiu factory and making the popular Chinese spirit. In 2000, he bought Ningxiahong, a company active in real estate, printing, catering and travel, in addition to the goji business.
Zhang has witnessed the opportunities that come with change. He's dismissive about the wine produced at Chateau du Grand Moueys: The quality is mediocre, the packaging "low class." A Paris-based designer has been pressed into service to redesign the bottles, adding red corks and gold lettering.
Lemaitre, the oenologue, notes that similar redesigns are underway at other estates owned by Chinese in the region: "There is some kind of bandwagon effect. Everyone wants a certain kind of packaging and has the same plans. Buy a vineyard with a nice chateau, divert all the wine produced to China, and set up a hotel on the estate."
Chinese acquisitions of French vineyards have thus far been small or middling estates. The mighty Grand Cru, the most prestigious of wine classifications, has eluded investors from the mainland. To put the investments in perspective, only an estimated 20 estates out of about 9000 in Bordeaux are in Chinese hands.
But Zhang dreams big and has plans to acquire a Grand Cru label "like Chateau Lafite" within the next decade. "When I was a child, I couldn't even dream of going to a city like Beijing," he chuckles. He waves his hand at the chateau's airy interiors. "All this," he says, "It makes me feel like a prince."
It's not yet clear how profitable these Chinese investments will be, going forward. Regardless, red and gold bottling, luxury Chinese restaurants in the countryside, and millions of bottles of French wine consumed by Chinese people as they dig into a supper of chicken feet a la mode, are bound to transform the hallowed French landscape of Bordeaux as much as its trading fortunes.
