The Château du Grand Mouëys has been sold to Chinese businessman Jinshan Zhang, founding president of the Ningxia Hong Group. Amongst many other enterprises Ningxia Hong is a leading producer of Gouqi, a Chinese spirit made from wolf berries. Producing 30 million bottles of Gouqi, Ningxia Hong has 300 000 sales outlets in China.
Jinshan Zhang has also owned a 250 acre vineyard in China since 1998 and wants to plant 700 acres more.
Grand Mouëys lies in Capian, in the Entre Deux Mers and the estate comprises of 420 acres of woods, meadows and gardens of which 148 acres are set aside to vines.
The château produces red wines under the Premier Cotes de Bordeaux appellation, white Bordeaux and Clairet. The Second Wine is named Les Templiers. The grape varieties grown are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle.
The château is said to rest on a Gallo-Roman villa of the first century AD which disappeared after the Visigoth invasion of 407. A medieval legend has it that the Château once belonged to the Knights Templar who hid treasure in an underground passage that joined to the abbey of La Sauve Majeure.
The château building itself is in neo-gothic style having been rebuilt in the 19th century after a fire.
Grand Mouëys has been in the hands of the Bömers family since 1989. The family also used to own the Reidemeister & Ulrichs Company in Bremen, an important wine merchants in Germany dating from 1831. The distribution of the wines of Château du Grand Mouëys is carried out by its subsidiary company “Caves des Grands Vins Français ” (CAVIF) – which presumably has also been purchased by Jinshan Zhang.
He has said that he would like to sell other Bordelaise wines, reaching 1 million bottles in total.
The château has also been run as a hotel and Jinshn Zhang has big plans in wine tourism. The eight guest rooms of the castle will be completely revamped to accommodate Chinese tourists. An up scale restaurant with Chinese and French cuisine, spa, tennis and golf are also scheduled.
Jinshan Zhang owns a travel agency and wants to bring 10,000 Chinese tourists a year to Bordeaux to discover his château. He has planted an additional 50 acres to augment the estate’s original 148 acres of vines and intends to export 90% of production to China and retain 10% for France and Europe. Stéphane Derenoncourt has been brought in as wine consultant.
