Languedoc wines set to get the respect they have long deserved

If the arrival of Chinese buyers is anything to go by, the Languedoc - always an underperforming French wine on the world stage - may be about to see its luck change.

It's been nearly seven years since the first Chinese purchase arrived in Bordeaux, with Château Latour-Laguens going under the hammer in January 2008. In three years, the value of Bordeaux imports into China had risen 191 per cent.

Since then, the fortunes of this iconic French region have seen a few precipitous falls, but it remains the largest presence in the Chinese market.

With this in mind, observers of Languedoc wines must be happy to learn that Château La Bastide, near to the ancient walled city of Carcassonne, with 61 hectares of vines and more than double that in parkland and forest, should be in Chinese hands by January.

The final agreement for the sale is with the French land agency SAFER, but it looks likely that Beijing-based HC International Wine Assets Management, already a distributor of French wines in China, will be given the all-clear for purchase.

Château La Bastide produces a wine bottled under the Corbières appellation, an area that accounts for 42 per cent of all AOC wines from the Languedoc. It makes well-priced, sunshine-filled bottles, and yet currently less than a quarter of its wines make their way outside of France.