Hong Kong wine entrepreneur Peter Kwok on his seven Bordeaux estates
Peter Kwok was the first Chinese investor in France’s premier winemaking region, and after 20 years, he is concentrating on the limestone terroir of his Right Bank vineyards
Quietly, confidently, Peter Kwok is once again doing things his own way.
The Vietnamese-born, Hong Kong-based businessman invested in Bordeaux in 1997 with the purchase of Château Haut-Brisson in Saint-Émilion, back when Hong Kong was still taxing wine at 60 per cent. It would be another 11 years before Longhai Investments bought Château Latour-Laguens in Entre-deux-Mers and was the starting gun for Chinese investors in the region.
Since then Kwok has bought another five estates; Châteaux Tour Saint-Christophe in Saint-Émilion, La Patache and Enclos Tourmaline in Pomerol, Enclos de Viaud in Lalande-de-Pomerol, and a few months ago signed a deal for Chateau le Rey in Castillon. He did buy a sixth – Chateau Tourans in Saint-Émilion – but it wasn’t for the chateau building, or the name. Kwok wanted something much more important, and something that says a lot about his journey over the past 20 years from wine lover to chateaux owner.
“I always knew that buying wine estates meant being in it for the long term,” Kwok tells me as we meet up in the beautiful village of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes where Tour Saint-Christophe is located. “But maybe in the early days I was looking to make an impact through clever winemaking. Today I know that making great wine begins and ends with terroir. That’s what it’s all about.”
All of Kwok’s estates are on Bordeaux’s Right Bank, on the slopes and flat tops of the hills that hug the Dordogne Valley. Vines have been thriving here for close to 2,000 years, but not all spots are created equal. These are hills rich in clay and limestone, very different from the gravelly flatlands of the Médoc region on the Left Bank, and the best parts ensure the vines get just enough of what they need, regulating water supply and keeping a sense of elegance and freshness in the glass.
This is what Kwok means when he talks about terroir, and it’s why he has also bought new high-quality plots to include in Haut-Brisson, and purchased Château Tourans, located close to Tour Saint-Christophe but with far more of its vines on Saint-Émilion’s famous limestone plateau.