THE chateau's walled courtyard under the gracefully decaying 15th-century tower and the irregular pond shaped like a kidney caught Haiyan Cheng's eye.
"The Chinese connected with the pond and its irregularity," said Bruno Roussy, an associate of the Cheng family. "The Chinese believe evil spirits don't like crooked lines. They are very superstitious."
The pond, courtyard and tower belong to th
e imposing 500-year-old Château Latour-Laguens, which rises in this wine-growing hamlet south-east of Bordeaux. Superstitious or not, Haiyan Cheng, 28, the daughter of wealthy Chinese businessman Zuochang Cheng, bought it all in January for about £1.5m – apparently the first time a chateau in the prestigious Bordeaux region had been sold to a Chinese citizen.
Zuochang Cheng's huge trading conglomerate already imports wines to China from Australia, Italy and South Africa. With the chateau, however, the family was buying respectability.
The Cheng family's purchase says a lot about the state of wine-making in the Bordeaux region. It is also testament to the globalisation of the wine business in recent years.
The Château Latour-Laguens, not to be confused with the renowned Château Latour, is typical of many of the other 30 properties the family viewed. The vineyard, with its cabernet sauvignon, merlot, sauvignon blanc and cabernet Franc grapes, produces red, white and rosé wines.
But the market for such mid-range wines, the speciality of this region of Bordeaux, has contracted of late, having been squeezed by competition from California, Australia, South Africa and Chile.
Previous owner Serge Laguens, 61, found it increasingly difficult to run the property, and his son and daughter were too busy with careers elsewhere to take over.
"It was enormously emotional for my husband," said his wife Hélène, who was emptying the chateau of family furnishings before the arrival of the new owners. As for the Chengs, she said: "It was the authenticity that attracted them, so for us they were attractive buyers. It's their intention to let the property live."
Criticism of the Chengs has been muted. As word leaked out that they planned improvements to the chateau and its grounds, there was some grumbling among the neighbours. The Chengs are said to have plans to restore the castle, creating accommodation for guests at wine tastings and seminars on wine. They also plan to double the land under cultivation, to about 150 acres if needed, by acquiring additional property.
"It is important that foreigners are coming," Bruno Roussy said as he swept his hand towards the surrounding vineyards and added: "This is dying."
In his office on the edge of Bordeaux, Hervé Olivier, the regional director of a public-private agency that oversees land use, explained that the past few years had plunged many Bordeaux wine-makers into crisis.
"Sales have been poor," he said. "The largest market is the domestic French market, but the French are drinking less wine. And the so-called New World wines, from Australia or South Africa, are very competitive."
The 150 or so grand houses, with names such as Château Margaux or Pétrus, continue to flourish, he said. "But the rest are going through difficult years."
Foreign investors are nothing new to Bordeaux, he added, citing Belgian, English and American owners of chateaux. As far back as 1983, the Suntory Group of Osaka, Japan, acquired Château Lagrange in St-Julien. In recent months large numbers of Russian and Indian buyers have also been shopping in the region.
Overall, he said, the trend is a healthy one. "If Bordeaux wants to develop, it has to open to the world," he said. "And if it wants to sell wine in China, who better than the Chinese to do it?"
At the Château des Sept Chênes, across the valley from Latour-Laguens, Cédric Landié has no qualms about his new neighbours. Landié, who began shipping wine two years ago to Japan, China and South Korea, said: "It's a good thing. The Chinese being here is good publicity for Bordeaux."
