All language subtitles for Red.Obsession.2013.720p.BluRay.x264-PFa-English

For centuries, Bordeaux has
commanded an almost mythical status

in the world of wine...
beguiling kings,

emperors and dictators alike.

While its survival is dependent

on the capricious
nature of weather,

its prosperity has always been tied

to the shifting fortunes
of global economies.

As powerful nations rise and fall,

so does the fate of this place.

♪ I put a spell on you

♪ Because you're mine

♪ You'd better stop
the things you do

♪ I said,
"Watch out! I ain't lying"

♪ I can't stand it

♪ 'Cause you're runnin' around

♪ I can't stand it

♪ 'Cause you're puttin' me down

♪ So I...

♪ I put a spell on you

♪ Whoa!

♪ Because you're mine, you're mine

♪ So I
So I-I-I put a spell on you

♪ Because you're mine

♪ Hey, yeah

♪ You're mine, yeah

♪ Because you're mine.

I love the history of this place.

I love the fact that it's been here
for hundreds and hundreds of years

and it's endlessly changed
with the buffeting of history

and the buffeting of politics
and the buffetings of taste.

There's a wonderful story, too,

about Samuel Pepys drinking
Haut-Brion in London in a tavern.

That's 350 years ago he
drank that, and he said,

"It's a wine of a most particular
taste," he said, "of which I know not."

What exactly makes it so magical

is obviously very difficult to
explain, just because... it's magical.

The first vines were planted here
by the Romans over 2,000 years ago.

The generations who have
worked this land since

are the custodians of a
reputation built over centuries.

Great wines... ha!... they are
as rare as great paintings

or as great pieces of music.

To make a great wine,

it's not only a great terroir, a
great château, it's a great vintage.

But then it's the human
factor, you know.

You need love.

You need to bring so much love
to your vines, to your vineyard.

When I see on a cluster
of 200 or 300 berries,

one which is slightly green,
I take it like that, you know.

And I know it's not significant,
apparently,

because one berry out
of 250 is nothing,

especially when you think of

those thousand... millions
of berries in the vineyard.

But it's the love you bring
through that gesture, you see?

That's very important.

I enjoy the wine so much.

I'm a drinker first,
more than a taster.

I drink so much,

that for me it's really
the pleasure of drinking.

I'm not a great taster,
I'm a great drinker.

I could qualify for that, I think.

Maybe you see, because
we are after lunch,

and it's true that I drunk more
than a bottle for lunch myself.

You know, I had guests and
we were seven people.

We had three magnums, so that's OK.

When you taste the fruit,

especially from a
block that you know,

you ask it, "I know
you, little vineyard.

"I know what is your soul.

"I know who are you as a character.

"But what do you have
to tell me this year?"

We've been producing
wine here for 400 years,

so it's very important

to understand the history
of such a place,

to understand the identity.

So many people ran the
property before me

that you really feel it every day.

It's not just a question of
'terroir', as we say in French,

it's a question of...
a piece of history,

a soul, a style, a DNA.

Protected from severe
Atlantic winds

and warmed by the effects
of the Gironde estuary,

these great estates are endowed
by nature with characteristics

that cannot be found
anywhere else in the world.

When I came here and they told me
these are the best pieces of land,

I thought, "Sure."
You know, I mean, "Pebbles."

But it's true... it's perfection.

Thanks to the former generations,

they have actually managed

to pick the best plots
of land in the world...

those little plots where the
drainage is done naturally,

where nothing grows but the vines

with the big pebbles to
keep the heat at night

and to reflect the
sun in the daytime.

It's a combination but
it took them centuries

and we are just following
in their steps.

When you live in a space like this,

the space takes energy out of you.

There's a link that is being built.

Some of my friends say, "You've
been here for 17, 18 years.

"Are you still amazed when
you arrive in this place?

"Are you still enchanted?"

And I say yes, because, actually,
I'm getting more and more,

because I understand how
special this piece of land is.

There's a vibration.

There's a real vibration here.

In 1855,

Napoleon III ordered that the
finest wines of Bordeaux

should be classified and
ranked in order of excellence.

Of the thousands of châteaux,

only a handful were rewarded
with 'Grand Cru' status.

While some may argue that
the 1855 classification

has become outdated,
these same châteaux

remain the jewels in
the crown of Bordeaux.

For many, these wines are
considered works of art,

but, unlike a painting,

wine only exists for that
brief instant in time

after the cork gets pulled.

It's a transient moment,

but it can leave an
indelible impression.

I had the privilege of having
a glass of Château Margaux

which was made and bottled

four years after the
French Revolution.

Maybe Lafayette
himself had tried it.

Maybe Jefferson had tried it.

So you're one with them
in a very intimate way.

When you start thinking about that,

you realize that wine
really told a story.

In the same moment of this
pleasure, this gratification,

there was also a tale told

about the history when
that wine was made...

what was going on in the world
when that wine was made

and, in particular,
a story about the place

and the land and the weather.

It's more than a manufactured
or agricultural product,

it's something closer to a miracle.

A miraculous wine

is only achieved when
temperature, rain,

sun and wind are delivered
in exact proportions.

In 100 years,
you might get five or six

legendary type of vintages.

So just in recent memory,

1961 was an absolutely brilliant
vintage for Bordeaux.

The next after that, possibly...
well, in fact, is 1982.

And after that, 2009.

But this year may rewrite

the Bordeaux history books.

Producers and critics alike

are predicting that the 2010
will be another perfect vintage.

After the harvest of
2010, we realized that,

yes, 2010 should be
such an extraordinary...

not just great... but such an
extraordinary vintage as '09.

And I just told myself,

"But how will we be able
to tell that to people?"

Because last year
I had personally told

that I would probably
not see that again

in my professional life.

This is an extraordinary
coincidence

of perfect climatic conditions.

Each year in early spring,

the Bordeaux wine producers

host an event called 'En Primeur'.

Here, like the catwalk at Milan,

the new season's wines
are paraded before

the most powerful and influential

journalists and critics
in the wine world.

A great wine just drills down

into your psyche and your
perceptions and strikes a chord,

and... you know, it's like
some brass instrument,

it just goes "Ding, ding,
ding, ding, ding,"

and then... bingo, it's great!

And you respond in a
very sensual way.

As soon as you have to use words

to describe your sensation,

you use words in a
part of your brain

which is linked to your memory,

to your history, to your taste,
to your education.

In my brain, because it's
my background, it's music.

This is like a voice, a wine.

It's like an instrument with
what we call a 'timbre',

which is different...
A Steinway has not the same...

That's the difference between
a Lafite and a Latour,

between a Guarnerius
and a Stradivarius.

My perception is like that.

I hear the wine, I don't smell.

I can tell you about
my first ever Bordeaux

and I'm still getting
memory from it now.

It was when I was a student,
all those years ago.

I'm still getting the pleasure
from that bottle of wine.

It was as though you'd got

a distillation of
something in this glass

which we know came from fruit, but
all the fruit had long since gone.

You were just left with this
ethereal, dreamy experience...

and it was a revelation!

Offering a wine En Primeur, which
basically means you are offering a wine

which is not yet
bottled, not yet ready,

means you are selling a
piece of excitement,

of anticipation, of magic,

and there must be some
hype and hope around this.

So, clearly, it's part of the deal

and that's why Bordeaux is
so famous around the world

because Bordeaux is very good
at creating that excitement.

With the 2009 vintage,

the hype matched the
quality of the wines.

This time around, we've
got an awful lot of hype.

I wonder whether their wines
will actually deliver,

and the proof, of course,
will be in the pudding.

But behind all the excitement

about whether the 2010

will be another 'vintage of the
century' is the commercial reality

that En Primeur is all about...
business.

In the past 10 years,

prices of the top Bordeaux wines
have risen by more than 1,000%.

As the price of these wines
continues to escalate,

the inevitable has happened...

they've become too
valuable to drink.

15 years ago, when I
started the company,

I said that at some point in
the future, within 25 years,

half of all the top wines bought

will be bought for investment,
and people laughed at me.

Now, you go and look at all the
traditional kind of wine companies

and they've all got
investment teams.

What are you paying on those?

Close to four grand.

Close to four grand?
Are you having a laugh?

En Primeur is a
calculated investment.

You're buying,
essentially, the wine

because you think you're
getting it cheaper now

and you're taking a credit risk
and a price risk on the future

but, essentially, an En Primeur
purchase is an investment purchase,

and once you understand that then you
start treating it slightly differently.

Didn't he say he's got a few million
he's gotta sell today or tomorrow?

He's got a couple million.
It's coming on to the market.

Because those guys have
got a deadline on that stuff,

so he's got 3 million to 5
million, he's got to sell it.

Wine has outperformed the stock
markets, all the major markets...

the Dow Jones, the FTSE, gold...

all these markets, since 1982.

We were looking for some
Margaux, vintages from the '90s,

those sort of lesser vintages,
as the market might call them.

You want nine and a half?
That's interesting, OK.

That gives me £100 profit
for my sale price.

I mean, what do I need...?
Yeah, exactly...

People will buy, and they'll spend
half a million or a million pounds,

and buy, you know,
25 cases of Lafite

and 25 cases of Latour, and four
or five years time, they sell it.

They've never seen the wine.

They don't even know what
the bottle looks like.

Here we've got X number
of thousand cases.

Average value of each bottle

would be approximately
400 or 500 euros a bottle,

times by lot of number
of cases, times by 12.

Work it out yourself.

Well, the 2009 prices
hit an all-time high,

absolutely astronomical prices,
and totally unexpected too.

And now, with all the hype
that's been leading into

this Primeur campaign
for the 2010 vintage...

..there is this real
worry that the Bordelais

are going to take it to
another unprecedented level.

These extraordinary rises

have put significant pressure
on traditional markets.

Bordeaux's most important
customer of the last 30 years,

already battered by the
global financial crisis,

The Americans are not going to
be buying anything from 2010.

They didn't buy anything in '09.

A few people will buy,
but America used to be

the biggest market in the
world for these wines

and it's not anymore,
the prices are just too high.

They've priced themselves
out of the market.

There's nothing, you know,
left to say about that.

But prices for the new wines

are not fixed until the
critics reveal their scores.

The higher the scores,

the higher the prices
set by the châteaux...

a situation not all
critics are happy about.

This time of year, when I'm
looking at the young wines

and I'm trying to work out

what they will be in 20 years time,

but a lot of the overlay
of my perception is...

.."How much money are they
trying to squeeze out of us?"

We are all pawns,
we are all part of

helping the Bordeaux château owners
get as much money as possible.

Ah, yes, of course, money!

Money conducts the world,
you know.

Bordeaux is all about trade, it's all
about politics, it's all about history.

What makes its heart beat

is not, "Gosh, I've just made a
beautiful cabernet sauvignon.

"Ooh, do come along
and taste it with me,"

but, "I'm powerful and I want
to be richer than I am,

"I want to be more powerful than
I am... and I know how to do it!"

The critics reveal their
scores and confirm the hype.

The 2010 is another
miracle vintage.

Internationally renowned
critic Robert Parker

scores perfect 100s for the top
wines, but warns the châteaux

that they should drop
their prices this year,

or suffer the consequences
of an overheated market.

If you're pushing your prices up

and you're pushing your clients
to pay more for the wines

that they've been buying for
years and years and years,

you really run the risk
of completely and utterly

divorcing your traditional markets.

Ignoring Parker's warning,
the major châteaux

immediately raise the
prices of the 2010 vintage

to an all-time high,

as much as 40% up on the
record 2009 vintage.

But the risk they are
taking is a calculated one.

Bordeaux's fate has
always been tied

to the fluctuations
of global markets.

With one superpower
having fallen away,

they're now turning their
attention to another.

Well, as of today, we've got 271
known US-dollar billionaires.

And that compares with,
say, 10 years ago, of 1.

So we've gone from 1 to
271 known billionaires,

but you have to take into account
that the wealth in China

is a little bit like an iceberg.

So what you can see on the top
is only a small proportion

of what the total wealth
picture would actually be.

So, if you were polite,

and you say that for every
one person that we've found,

we've missed at least
one, that means, today,

China's probably got around
600 US-dollar billionaires.

That's more than the US.

It's going to be a great tasting.

I hope you get a chance to
taste these wonderful wines.

So, thank you very much.

Hey, everybody, come here.

Put your hands together.
Come on.

Let's do it. Yeah?

Yeah!

Right now, I think everyone
has the wine fever.

How extreme that is
depends on their time

and disposable income.

It's a real honor and a pleasure

to have Robert Parker in Hong Kong.

The economic growth rate of
China over the past 10 years

has been the fastest
in human history.

China, including Hong Kong,

has now become the largest importer
of Bordeaux wines in the world.

They just erupted,

and we were afraid

of not being able to cope
with such a fast change

when we didn't know the country

and we didn't know the
people, the culture.

So we thought that it
was very necessary

to have somebody based there.

Welcome to Beijing!

We're very happy to sponsor

one of the best events
in China this year.

And we are very, very happy to be
here with so many beautiful girls.

The idea was to promote the
beauty of women in China,

and to promote the beauty
of wine from France.

So we did a kind of combination

for the election last year of Miss
China Universe in a very special party

where the goal was to
teach how to drink wine

to 32 of the most
beautiful women in China.

Compared to France, where my generation
is less excited by wine than before,

because we've had wine
for hundreds of years...

in China, it's very new.

In some small cities in China, you
arrive, there's a big red carpet,

they bring two Rolls-Royce
to take care of you,

with hundreds of people on
the side of the carpet.

And you feel, "Am I at the
Cannes Film Festival, or what?"

But this is China getting
excited by wine,

getting obsessed,
in a way, by wine,

because it's new,
it's fun, it's French,

and we have so much
potential in this market.

The Chinese market has
been so enthusiastic

that they have driven prices
up to unprecedented levels

where a lot of traditional customers
can't or don't want to follow.

It would be terrible for us to
lose our traditional markets,

because still the
traditional customers

share our taste and culture.

It would be a big loss, and we
are slightly worried, true.

The problem is that we don't see
what we can do to change that.

I think the Bordelais run the risk

of relying on the China
market too much.

I think that China has got a way to
go in terms of the overall market.

And there's no track record

or any long-term relationships
or anything like that.

I mean, that market can disappear

as quickly as it appeared.

The voracious nature of
Bordeaux's newest customer

can partly be explained by
events in its recent past.

Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution

saw nationwide repression
and persecution

in the name of change.

I worked with many people

who had suffered in
different degrees

in the Cultural Revolution.

All of them had one
thing in common...

that they never wanted to
look back to that period.

In the late '70s, China's leadership
began lifting the sanctions

on private ownership
and personal wealth.

The transition to a market
economy was meant to be gradual.

But after 30 years of isolation, the
Chinese people had other ideas.

There was a huge pent-up
energy that you could sense,

particularly amongst what
many people would call

a 'lost generation'.

By that time the lid was off

and the people were looking
to regain, if you like,

the entrepreneurial space that
had always existed in China,

but had been contained for so long.

There was a lot of catch-up to do

and I think one of the
most astonishing things

over the last 30
years, that I've seen,

is the speed of that catch-up.

When I first came to China
to do the television shows,

there was no middle class,
there was only one class.

So it was a very interesting time.

And to see it grow,
like in the last 25 years,

to this type of a
degree, is amazing.

The Chinese have always been taught

that a nail that sticks out
has to be pounded down.

So that has been the culture.

You always want to
hide in the masses.

So they used to wear the
same kind of hairstyle,

the same kind of clothes, the
same color of clothes even.

But it is in the last 20 years that
the opening has done to the Chinese,

that they are beginning
to have an individuality.

20 or 30 years ago,

when China opened up for the
first time, nobody had any cash.

So all the money has been made,
really, over the last 30 years.

It's been the largest privatization
in the world, pretty much, ever.

I'm looking forward to
our skiing holiday.

Yes.

If they've lived through
the Cultural Revolution,

this means they've gone
to hell and come back.

So, when the Chinese do things,

as is so obvious now
to the modern world,

in a business venture, or any
venture, for that matter,

the Chinese have no fear.

Because they say,
"Well, how worse off can we be?

"We can just start
from zero again."

It wouldn't bother them at all.

This is why China is so dynamic.

People shoot for the stars.

As China began opening up,
it looked to the West

for ways of expressing its
wealth, power and modernity.

Now, China's newly affluent

are a magnet for the most
luxurious brands in the world.

The Chinese luxury
consumer today...

you could say he's on steroids.

He's had every single luxury
brand pumped into his system,

and it's really been happening
over the last 10 years.

And competing in this
aggressive luxury market

are the fine wines of Bordeaux.

Margaux is always compared
like a luxury brand.

But, for me, we are very...
a bit frustrated,

because Margaux can't do

what Hermès or Louis
Vuitton is doing.

Because if they train
a few more people,

if they buy the right raw
material, the right leather,

they can always produce
a few more bags.

We are limited by nature,
by climate,

so we can't make one
more bottle of wine.

I mean, how many companies

didn't see their potential
production change for 400 years?

It even went down,

because we had to be more
selective to make more quality.

Wine now is the new Silk Road.

It is one of the intermediaries

to connect China to the
rest of the world.

I mean, you look at China now,

they're all dressed in a
shirt and tie, like me.

It's part of the Westernization...

they wear it on the
top of their skin.

Now you're talking about wine,
that they swallow it...

..inside their body.

I mean, now they swallow
the Western civilization

inside their body,
in their bloodstream.

I think there's always been an
interest in wine made from grapes

as an element of exoticism.

Now, normally, in the West, we view
exoticism as coming from the East...

Orientalism, if you were...

but here there is a type of
exoticism coming from the West.

They've made a lot of money.

I've dealt with people
who have done things

like blown $42 million on
building a private wine club.

It's because it's viewed
as being civilized,

as understanding Western culture and as
bringing it together with Chinese ideas.

When they buy the wine, they buy the
wine as a symbol of their status,

as a symbol of what they
have achieved in China.

There's different ways of marking
ourselves out from the rest of the herd

and one of these is a
bottle of Lafite, you know.

And it really sets their stage.

It gives them position,
it gives them face,

it gives them a way of
presenting themselves

as being knowledgeable
about Western wine culture

in a very safe and comfortable way.

Peter Tseng is a
wealthy industrialist

from Shenzhen in South China.

He is recognized internationally

as the most successful
entrepreneur in his field.

His vast wine collection
is acknowledged

as one of the finest in the world,

and is valued at upwards
of US$60 million.

Peter made his fortune as a
manufacturer in the pleasure industry.

George Tong is listed
as one of the power elite

by 'Hong Kong Tatler' magazine.

He is vice-president and executive
director of Wong Hau Plastic Works,

one of the largest doll manufacturing
companies in the world.

Will you play with us?

Well, I started collecting
wine around 2003,

so it's about eight years already.

It seems like a long time,
but actually it's very young

if you look at a
collector's point of view.

When I first visited Bordeaux,
I was like a little child...

I'd known Mickey Mouse a long
time, for a few years already,

I'd known Donald Duck, but I'd
never been to Disneyland.

And they have so many
different areas...

there's the Adventureland,
there's the Tomorrowland,

there's the Frontierland,

so there are different
areas that I can explore,

and every area there's
so many attractions.

Cheese!

The number of Chinese people who were down
there tasting the wines was extraordinary.

One château I went to

said that 400 Chinese
visitors came in September.

I mean, this is extraordinary...
no château gets that in any month.

We were very lucky to be the
only château in Bordeaux

visited by President
Hu Jintao, in 2001.

I remember, I was 15.

I saw him from far away,
surrounded by many bodyguards.

But I tell people
when I do dinners,

"You know, President Hu Jintao
visited Château Margaux in 2001

"but, at that time, he was
only the vice-president.

"And then he drank some Margaux '82

"and he became the
President of China!"

A lot of Chinese, actually.

For now three years in Bordeaux,

we have a lot of Chinese people
very interested in wine.

But not exactly in wine...
just in two labels,

two or three different
labels and just it.

They just look for this wine...
Lafite and Latour.

In the Chinese market
today, quality is important

but brand name recognition
is everything.

An element I found difficult
to deal with in China

is this branding aspect.

As a French person and as
a younger wine amateur

we've always treated the wines
from where they come from.

Before the brands,
these wines are pieces of land

and have been pieces of land
where wine has been produced

for the last 600, 700 years,

as long as we can
go back in history.

Probably in China more than
in any other countries,

I try to take the wine
amateur the other way,

to bring them from
the brand they knew

to the land that
started everything.

And this journey is
very important for us.

When foreigners come to China,

they go into a Chinese
restaurant, you open the menu.

Oh, my God, there's,
like, a hundred things on it,

they're written in squiggly writing

and you're not quite
sure what it means.

So, as a consequence, most people
dealing with that situation

order the same dishes over again...

the sweet-and-sour pork, the
fried rice, the fried noodles.

It's easy, it's what's famous,
it's what they understand.

And, for a Chinese person coming
to wine, it's the same thing.

Funny labels, funny names...
how do you understand this?

Wine has this incredible problem...

it's very difficult to
enter into by externals.

So what do you do when a
subject's difficult like that?

You have to go by famous brands.

And the Bordelais have
done an awfully good job

of marketing and
promoting themselves

as the premier wine
brand in the world.

All five of the
first-growth châteaux

have achieved spectacular
brand recognition in China.

But there is one that stands head
and shoulders above the rest.

Theories abound as to
why Château Lafite

has been able to penetrate the
Chinese market so successfully.

I think the secret of Lafite
is in the soil by itself.

There is a style,

there is something coming,
vintage by vintage,

and when we have the possibility to
taste some old vintages of Lafite,

all the time there is
something by the nose

which is Lafite style.

Yesterday a customer of mine
told me, because I asked him...

every time I ask,
"Why especially Lafite?"...

and they say, "Because in China
we think that Lafite

"is very good for the health
of ladies, for the skin.

"If you drink Lafite,
you have beautiful skin."

Anyone who remembers Hong Kong
gangster movies of the '90s...

what did the big guys call for?

In China, as well
as in most of Asia,

it's still a very
hierarchical society,

which means that the
opinion leaders,

their opinions matter a lot.

Whatever purchases they make
or whatever brands they favor,

it trickles down to the rest of
the society almost effortlessly,

and without a huge
marketing effort.

So, did Lafite make a huge
marketing effort in China?

No, not in the beginning.

Numerology plays a significant role
in the day-to-day life in China.

Luck and prosperity
are believed to flow

from the right
combination of numbers.

And the number 8 is the
most auspicious of all.

In 2008, Lafite made a small
change to their bottle...

placing the Chinese number
8 just above the label.

Was it purely marketing?
Perhaps.

Was it a longer-term
strategy to say,

"We are being more sensitive
to the Chinese culture

and trying to
understand the market"?

That could be, you know,
a deeper message.

The day that came out and it had
the number 8 on top of the bottle,

we were with a Chinese
customer for lunch,

and we passed him the news
article and I said, you know,

"What do you think? Is this just rampant
commercialism, "or is this significant?"

And he read the whole
article very studiously,

pushed it across the
table, and said,

"This is now the most valuable
bottle of Lafite you can buy.

"Because what you're doing
is giving luck, fortune...

"..you're giving the lucky
number 8 to someone to say,

"you know, 'This is how
much I respect you.'."

So, even though Lafite '82
is £60,000 a case,

this is actually significantly
more of a gift.

Sales of Lafite 2008
soared overnight.

There was one point when a
customer from Macau called us up

and bought well over 80 cases
of Lafite 2008 in one go.

And he paid with cash.

That was the... that was a very
interesting transaction for us.

Lafite alone last year, we sold
£27 million worth of Lafite.

On its own. One brand.

And that is out of £130 million,
£140 million worth of sales.

So, that's how big that brand is.

Just the one. One brand.

Is China just another market?

Clearly no, because the
potential in volume

of this market creates a
real pressure on demand.

Probably at the scale

that the United States was
in the beginning of the '50s

and then on to the
'80s and early '90s.

That's clearly the same...
the same scale.

And it's probably going faster...
even faster than the US.

Pressure from Chinese
consumers is now so great

that it's beginning
to impact heavily

on the cellar stocks of the great
châteaux... stocks that include

old and rare vintages dating
back hundreds of years.

The Chinese are big
customers of ours,

and we don't always let them
have what they want.

If you were to accept every
single customer's requests

on old vintages,
this place would be empty.

A customer from Asia has
contacted me recently...

emailed me every single
day for the last week

to sell him a case of
Mouton Rothschild '45...

which we sell at
18,000 euros a bottle.

So, he'd have bought at 23,000,
24,000 euros, including VAT.

Times by 12.

And he's basically insisting
on me selling him a case.

But, unfortunately, we can't,

so I've offered a bottle
and he's not wildly happy.

With demand massively
exceeding supply,

wine fever is fueling
fierce competition

in the auction rooms of Hong Kong.

For many, it is becoming
a kind of an obsession.

I like to attend the auctions.

I like the bidding.
I like the excitement.

I just want to own it.

Whether I would drink it
or not, I don't know.

But there... it's something that I
really want, and I have to get it.

When I'm bidding so aggressively,
I don't see anybody around me...

all I know is the
auctioneer and myself.

No matter what, this is what I
want... I want to bring it home.

When I attended the
ex-Château Lafite auction,

it was a very rare vintage and I
think they only have one bottle.

And the auctioneer was going, like,

"300,000, 500,000, 700,000."

Then suddenly,
I just raised my paddle.

I said, "1.5 million."

Sold.

What we have now, what we're seeing
now, is a generation of new consumers

that actually realizes that
wine is very underpriced,

and are paying the comparable prices
they would... say, for example...

with a great Old Dynasty vase
or limited-edition painting.

And I think this actually
absolutely highlights

the incredible position
that the best châteaux,

the best producers in
the world, are in.

They are in demand.

And if you're in demand, like
a movie star, like a rock star...

if you want a front-row seat,
you have to pay for it...

and there's nothing
wrong with that.

If a dozen mainland
Chinese decided,

"I love this.
This is what I want to collect."

and decided to buy everything
in the market place,

I mean, very soon...

..it only takes a few people
to corner the entire market

for that particular wine from
that particular vintage.

So, it's very easy to do.

And that means, for the rest of us, the
prices are going to be astronomical.

We're not going to be able
to even afford a glass.

Oh!

The worsening eurozone debt crisis

is adding to the instability in
Bordeaux's traditional markets.

Some are now speculating

that Hong Kong's
overheated auction results

may have serious
long-term consequences.

You can just see that
it's just kind of

reaching a crescendo of some sort.

It runs the risk of being in a bubble, and
I think we are in a bubble right now.

Well, most bubbles
do pop eventually.

And when wine prices correct,
they don't correct by 2% or 3%,

they correct by between
20% and 35%... instantly.

Oh, there is no bubble.

Wine is just finally
realizing its true value.

There is no bubble.

You know, all of these...

I am so sick and tired of these bubble
conversations because it is annoying.

We are not totally stupid.

We know that... that things
don't go up to heaven.

I think it's very important to realize
that things can change in both directions.

What we must protect is the wine.

With Bordeaux's fine wines

now elevated to
luxury goods status,

it was only a matter of
time before it succumbed

to the world's most rampant and
notorious counterfeit market.

You can find today in China

more bottles of Lafite 1982

than there were produced
in 1982 in Château Lafite.

An empty bottle of Lafite
costs around $500.

That's what I heard.

That's why if I bring any
good wines to a restaurant,

I either bring the empty
bottle back home,

or I just ask them to destroy
the bottle right there.

I have been to a winery where
you can walk in the door,

open a portfolio of labels,

and choose what you
want on your bottle...

Lafite, Latour or Margaux.

They use our fame,
they use our name.

Wherever there is money to
be made out of luxury goods,

the people that are making
fakes come in behind it.

And in some respects, luxury
goods would not be luxury goods

unless the fakes existed.

I say when one of my wines
is faked somewhere,

I say, "Well, that's
the sign of success."

It does not please me
for that reason...

..but I have suffered so much
of fakes with Château Pétrus.

I spend so much time struggling

against the people whom
we think were the fakers

even if it is like a drug market

where we never know
who is the big boss.

That... it's really an unpleasant
matter to discuss for me.

But fakes are not a new
phenomenon in China.

Even during the Tang Dynasty
in the 14th century,

China had problems of fake goods.

There are many instances
throughout Chinese literature,

paintings, art, sculpture,

where it's considered not faking,

but to be an honorable thing

to copy the work of an artist
that you admire and respect.

If you've lost the
connection to the past

which I think they have
to some extent here,

it's unavoidable...
if you've lost that connection

to your own architectural history,

you have to create new links.

And if you create new links,
where are you going to look to?

The château,
the fairytale castle...

it fulfills a deep-seated longing

to join up to another
architectural history.

While some are building
replica châteaux,

others are more interested
in the genuine article.

Just the latest sign of
the global power shift...

Chinese investors scooping up estates
and vineyards across Bordeaux.

Richard Shen is a good example.

He's the CEO of a Chinese
fine jewelry store.

There he is with Chinese
film star Zhang Ziyi.

She's a big fan of his wine.

Now, he purchased
a château back in...

We always have fear of the unknown.

You know, that has always been
the case, for so many years.

And, on the contrary, I think
some Chinese groups

or some Chinese individuals

should acquire some châteaux in
Bordeaux, see what it is to make wine.

It's more complex than you think.

And if they bring passion along
with RMB, that's fabulous.

We need to remain an
open country, you know.

Today the world is their territory.

They're beginning to explore

everything that is possible
in other parts of the world.

Although Bordeaux may be
used to foreign investment,

this new relationship differs
in one significant way.

It makes sense for them,
but it will not last.

If you produce wine in France,

you have to be recognized as
a wine producer in France,

even if you are Chinese.

And the only way to be recognized
is to sell, at least, in France.

I understand very
well that a Chinese

that buys an estate here,

first idea... "I'll produce,
and then, in production,

"I adapt my label and I
will sell in China."

But we will see how it
will be in 5 or 10 years.

It now seems that
Bordeaux's largest customer

is becoming its competitor,

and on a much grander scale than
anyone could have imagined.

Currently, the per capita
consumption in China

is less than one bottle
of wine per year.

In the West, the average
is about 35 bottles.

But as grape wine consumption
gains popularity

amongst the broader
population of 1.4 billion,

these numbers are set to
change, in a big way.

To cope with the increasing demand,

China is now planting
over 20,000 acres

of new vineyards every year.

Within the next four decades,
China is set to become

the world's largest
producer of wine.

Chinese people, we are
very proud of ourselves,

of our culture,

so we think that if we
want to do something,

we can do it better,
we can be successful.

Well, I think that the government
feels it's very important

to promote grape wine,
in particular, over spirit wine,

just because of
distribution of resources.

For one thing, we all know
grapes can grow in areas

which don't suit potatoes
and grain and corn,

and all of those very
important staple crops.

But after centuries of cyclical
famine and food shortages,

prime agricultural
land is at a premium.

Winemakers must look further afield

to find suitable
land for grapevines.

In arid regions on the fringes of
the great Central Asian deserts,

the Chinese are preparing
the ground for vineyards.

Giant, state-owned
corporations have big plans

for remote Ningxia province,
in north-west China.

Consultant winemaker Demei Li

trained at Bordeaux's
Château Palmer.

He has brought his expertise
here to He Lan Qing Xue

in the hope of developing
a top-quality wine.

It's a very dry region-a
very cold winter.

And, uh, you know, we...

during the wintertime we should
bury the vines under the soil.

Otherwise the plant
cannot survive, so...

that's the big difference.

The summer, during the green
season, is quite hot and warm.

The temperature is quite
high in the daytime,

but during the night,
quite a low temperature.

So, I think the terroir gives this
wine a difference from other regions.

I never thought about competing
with French Bordeaux wines.

Just to make a drinkable wine
that people can appreciate.

Bordeaux has a long history...
they have a bunch of chateaux.

But China is just like a baby,
we just start to make wine.

Ladies and gentlemen,

welcome to the 2011
Decanter World Wine Awards.

On to the red Bordeaux
varietal over £10.

And the winner is...

..the 2009 from He Lan Qing Xue.

To collect this trophy we are delighted
to have with us the president, Jian Rong.

Well, it was surprising to find a
Chinese wine winning a gold medal

and also winning the
international trophy,

and by a majority vote it
came top... so what can I say?

It was tasted three
times, completely blind.

It's a surprise.

I never think we could win this,
so high, the highest trophy,

I'm very excited.

The Chinese wine industry
has improved a lot,

so it encourages us to
continue to work hard.

Chinese people,
we are very aspirational,

we want, as much as we
can, to have the best

because we like to try new things,

we like to enjoy new taste,
we like outside influences

as much as we are proud
of what we have.

Every Chinese person
has one goal in life,

which is to make life better
for the next generation.

In stark contrast to last year,

the 2011 growing season in Bordeaux

has seen extreme weather,

with heatwaves and
sudden hailstorms

sweeping across the Médoc.

Late heavy rains have
increased the risk of disease

and growers are having to rush
their picking to avoid fruit rot.

Well, this is a challenging season,
this is a challenging vintage.

This year, the vines, they are
a little bit shy, to be honest,

they don't talk a lot.

We have to listen to
her very carefully.

It means that you have to be
clever, more clever than usual.

You really have to ask yourself,
"What should I do?"

The challenge is to make
the best as possible

with a fruit that is not the best.

The bad news is that quantity

is even more limited
than what we thought

and 2011 might well
be the smallest crop

since 2003.

With yields down

and some of the fruit
damaged by bad weather,

winemakers are having to work
hard to salvage what they can.

But what kind of vintage
the 2011 will be

is anyone's guess.

After breaking all price
records this time last year,

Bordeaux has suffered
its largest decline

since the global financial crisis.

Prices have slumped
across the board

and sales of the top Bordeaux
wines are down an astounding 60%.

It would appear that
the bubble has burst.

It's just like someone
climbing up Mount Everest,

reaching the top and
saying, "Bugger that,

"I'm not going to climb down,
I'm going to jump off!"

I mean, it's exactly like that...
it's absolutely extraordinary.

But in the context of the market,

Bordeaux has been
around for a long time

and I don't think what's happening
right now is a bad thing.

I actually think it's good for the fine
wine industry and it's good for Bordeaux,

because everyone's going
to have to rethink

about where the future lies

and why they're doing
what they're doing.

I think Bordeaux is very lucky

because it went through
so many crises

and it is like the phoenix.

There's a permanent
resurrection after the crisis.

The resilience of Bordeaux
is quite amazing.

When you realize that this
place has been able to survive

such a disease as phylloxera,
revolutions, wars...

and look where we are now.

Each time we say it's the end,

and then Bordeaux comes back
and is successful again,

and, of course, we exaggerate
again our prices and we collapse.

But nevertheless there is that
fantastic ability of Bordeaux

to overcome the crisis.

Will it last forever?
I mean, in 1,000 years?

I don't know.

But honestly, with
experience on my side,

I don't see any region which
will compete with Bordeaux.

Bordeaux will remain the reference.

Bordeaux will be the reference

at least for one more
century, I think...

even if we make mistakes,
and sure we will make mistakes.

After a few tumultuous years,

China's love affair with Bordeaux

appears to be on the wane.

There will always be
a clash of cultures.

There will always be.

My parents who come from Chinese
background and English background

have been married for 50 years

and we call it an
ongoing civil war.

There is always going
to be differences

in the way people
approach problems,

in the way people
deal with each other,

and I think my advice to most
Western companies coming here

is, "Don't forget, it's China,

"and things work differently here."

I see this happen all the time...

you get lots and lots of conflict
between people coming in here

and expecting things to work like
they do in the rest of the world.

And they don't. They really work
with Chinese characteristics.

Wine is like a message

which you send over the world.

I think it's better than those
little... How do you call that?

Tweets, you call that?
Yes, it's a tweet.

It will end on a table,
let's say in Seattle,

and you can imagine a couple
is meeting for one evening,

a guy is dating a charming girl for
the first time and they have that.

And from the quality of that bottle

may depend the success of
their first meeting, you know.

And if I spoil their evening,
what a drama, you know...

I am responsible.

So our wines should be
as good as possible.

We need to please people, and
not to impress them... to please.

I don't know if I should
say I am a farmer,

I should say, "We are farmers,"

because we are really together

and we think sometimes
we control a lot but...