Chapter 99

Since he couldn't own all six grand cru vineyards of Vosne-Romanée, Prince Xuan decided to go all the way with the high-end route.

He planned to acquire or exchange the Romanée-Saint-Vivant and parts of Echezeaux and Grand Echezeaux from Vosne-Romanée, which are owned by Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, for the remaining parts of Richebourg, thus owning Richebourg entirely.

This way, combined with the Romanée-Conti and La Tâche vineyards that Domaine de la Romanée-Conti already exclusively owned, he would completely own three grand cru vineyards.

These are also the three most valuable grand cru vineyards.

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti owns half of Richebourg, 3.51 hectares, but the other half has over ten owners.

However, with fewer owners involved, after much effort, these ten owners agreed to sell or exchange their land with other grand cru vineyards.

Of course, Prince Xuan exchanged more land.

The remaining parts of the other three grand cru vineyards that were not exchanged, Prince Xuan also sold off.

The original owners of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Aubert de Villaine and Lalou Bize-Leroy, upon learning that Prince Xuan was selling parts of Romanée-Saint-Vivant, Echezeaux, and Grand Echezeaux, repurchased them.

They also own other vineyards outside of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, but none can compare to it.

In the end, Prince Xuan paid 4.6 billion euros to fully own the Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, and Richebourg vineyards, totaling a little over 14 hectares.

The average price per hectare of vineyard exceeded 300 million euros.

Currently, the price of top-tier vineyards is generally around 20 to 30 million euros per hectare.

This time, the sale of the Romanée-Conti vineyard, like the purchase by Prince Conti in the past, exceeded the price of other top-tier vineyards by more than ten times.

Prince Xuan and the three original owners, including Aubert de Villaine, were all satisfied with this price, which would undoubtedly further solidify the supreme status of Romanée-Conti in the wine world.

Although they sold the Romanée-Conti vineyard, the three original owners' fascination with Romanée-Conti did not diminish. One of the conditions of the sale was that the owner of the Romanée-Conti vineyard must sell ten bottles of Romanée-Conti to the three families each year.

Even if Prince Xuan were to sell the Romanée-Conti vineyard, this condition had to be included in the new sale agreement to ensure that the three families could always taste Romanée-Conti.

Interestingly, both Dijon Bouchard and Henri Leroy, who successively bought half of the shares of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, had only daughters.

The 50% share held by the Bouchard family has been inherited by the de Villaine family, and the 50% share held by the Leroy family has been inherited by Lalou Bize-Leroy (25%) and her grandson, Henry Frédéric-Roch (25%).

The generous Prince Xuan directly changed the condition to the owner of the Romanée-Conti vineyard must gift ten bottles of Romanée-Conti to the three families each year.

The owner of the Romanée-Conti vineyard must also sell one-twentieth of the new wine produced each year at no more than five times the market price of Lafite in the French market.

After all, the Romanée-Conti vineyard has become a part of French culture, and many elites are deeply fascinated by this dream wine.

Without this condition, it would be difficult to sell the Romanée-Conti vineyard to foreigners.

Prince Xuan also agreed to this condition, as he did not intend to completely remove Romanée-Conti from the market.

Otherwise, even if Romanée-Conti were of the highest quality, a wine that cannot be found in the market would be hard to price.

After some pleasantries and signing over a dozen documents, Prince Xuan paid 4.6 billion euros and became the owner of the Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, and Richebourg vineyards.

The three grand cru vineyards produce about 6,000 bottles of Romanée-Conti, 20,000 bottles of La Tâche, and 40,000 bottles of Richebourg annually.

This seems like a lot, but it's important to note that Château Lafite produces over 200,000 bottles annually.

In terms of price, even the least expensive Richebourg usually exceeds the price of the same year's Château Lafite.

The production of the three grand cru vineyards of Romanée-Conti is pitifully small for the global elite.

Moreover, after becoming the owner of the three grand cru vineyards, Prince Xuan plans to supply some of the production to the high-end tourism projects of Prince International Resort Group.

The combination of the most beautiful environments and Romanée-Conti will be even more attractive to global billionaires.

After all, not every billionaire can own a private resort, and even those who have private islands still find global resorts appealing.

Some high-end tourism projects with strict environmental protection requirements can only be open to a select few, which means that some of the high-quality tourism resources of Prince International Resort Group can only be developed for the global elite.

Of course, more tourism resources are still open to ordinary tourists.

After finalizing the documents, Prince Xuan had three bottles of 1990 Romanée-Conti brought out to celebrate.

Unfortunately, he missed the time to taste the 2009 new wine, as the 2009 wine has already been sealed and aged.

The weather in France in 2009 was textbook-perfect, and the 2009 vintage is considered to be a perfect year for wine.

Every September and October, major vineyards begin harvesting grapes and then start the winemaking process, which takes about three months to produce the initial wine.

In January of the following year, vineyards in Burgundy hold new wine tasting events, inviting wine experts, famous magazine editors, fund managers, and distributors to taste the wine and negotiate the price of the new wine.

After World War II, the French economy was severely impacted, and many vineyards faced financial difficulties.

Thus, they introduced the concept of financial futures to the wine industry, selling the wine in advance to recoup funds for production.

Good red wines generally require two years of aging before bottling.

However, the vineyards cannot wait that long. They invite people to taste the new wine before bottling, score it, and negotiate a price, selling it to investors.

Investors expect the new wine to appreciate in value after it is released, so they buy the unbottled new wine.

When the new wine is bottled and released, it is scored again. After two years of aging, the wine may improve or decline slightly.

The score at bottling may be lower than the score when it was first made, which can affect the opening price of the new wine. Sometimes the opening price can be lower than the price of the futures wine sold two years ago.

In such cases, investors incur a loss.

However, more often, the futures wine tends to appreciate, especially in good years, sometimes increasing several times over in two years.

Investing in futures wine is more reliable than the capital market, with the potential for significant gains, but almost no risk of a crash. Occasional declines are usually in the range of a few dozen percent.

Generally, those who participate in futures wine investment are familiar with wine.

In the well-known Bordeaux region, new wine tasting events begin in March and April, and almost all vineyards, including the powerful Rothschild family, sell futures wine to recoup funds.

The new wine of Romanée-Conti is always fully pre-ordered early.

When Prince Xuan was preparing to buy the Romanée-Conti vineyard, the futures wine of Romanée-Conti had already been sold, but everyone knew that 2009 was a perfect year.

Aubert de Villaine was waiting for the appreciation, but he had already sold some of the futures wine to recoup funds, and most of the 2009 new wine was still in the vineyard.

Prince Xuan was not in a hurry to recoup funds and would not sell the 2009 new wine.

Before bottling, the new wine is aged in new oak barrels, which are sold after one use.

The Romanée-Conti vineyard has its own cooperage. After purchasing oak planks, they are air-dried for three years and then specially low-temperature roasted before being used to make the barrels.