Castel, the Bordeaux-based, family-owned company that owns Nicolas and the UK retail chain Oddbins plus many winemaking operations in France and Morocco, has just announced even closer ties with Changyu, China’s oldest and most substantial wine company.
The Castels were already involved in a joint venture in Yantai, Shandong on the coast, establishing the just-opened Château Changyu-Castel as a tourist destination winery making upmarket red wines with a Bordeaux accent for the increasing number of wine drinkers in China.
This new agreement, hatched at Vinexpo, gives Castel access to Changyu’s enviable distribution network in China’s 29 biggest wine-drinking regions for...