(Decanter) - From the beginning of 2011, a leading Bordeaux real estate agent says, an average of one Bordeaux chateau per month has been sold to a Chinese investor.

Asian-owned properties in Bordeaux now number 40 to 50 – a figure that, given the size of the region, is a mere ‘blip on the radar’, estate agent Maxwell-Storrie-Baynes says.

From 1997, when Taiwanese native Peter Kwok bought Chateau Haut Brisson, there have been some 50 chateaux in the Bordeaux region sold to investors from China, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.

The market for Bordeaux properties is so bullish that auctioneer Christie’s has seen the opportunity and is launching a vineyards service targetted at the Chinese, as part of Christie’s International Real Estate.

Maxwell-Storrie-Baynes, which acts as Christie’s Bordeaux affiliate, has compiled a table of purchases since the late 1990s and finds at least 40 chateaux are Chinese-owned