A tasting was held in the underground cellar at Changyu on Aug 21 to promote its new wine investment product.

Jean Pierre, a sommelier adviser to Changyu company, decants a bottle of red wine. Photos provided to China Daily

The taste for fine wines among Chinese investors may find a new outlet as Changyu Pioneer Wine Co Ltd launches the country's first history-themed wine investment product.

One of China's top wine producers, Changyu has teamed with the Bank of China (BOC) and Zhonghai Trust Co Ltd to issue a new financial product backed by Century Cellar Ping Zhong Li Quan wine.

The vintage is named after an inscription by Sun Yat-sen, founder of China's Kuomintang party.

The wine-based financial instrument, offered only to VIP clients of BOC, has a 1.08 million yuan ($168,804) minimum investment that is locked in for 18 months.

After a year and a half investors can sell the financial instrument at a promised annual return of 7 percent - twice the current benchmark one-year bank deposit rate of 3.5 percent - or take possession of the wine itself.

"Although the price of the product is not cheap, it is very popular among our clients, Jing Li, head of BOC's investment department for VIP clients, told China Daily three days after the product's release on Aug 21.

"Now, almost all of the initial release has been subscribed."

Encouraged, Changyu plans to issue another Century Cellar wine product with a lower minimum investment to a wider spectrum of investors.

With real estate investment trusts cooling after the government moved to dampen once-buoyant property markets, the wine product is drawing investors with the prospect of decent returns.

"Most of the buyers are wine lovers. Despite the decent returns, some of them do not intend to sell the product, but get the wine for collecting," said Jing.

120 years old

Almost 120 years ago, overseas businessman Chinese Zhang Bishi established Changyu wine company in Yantai, a coastal city in Shandong province. During the revolution against the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Zhang donated money to Sun Yat-sen several times to support his campaigns.

On Aug 21, 1912, Sun visited the Changyu Grand Cellar as he traveled through Yantai. After tasting a glass of fine wine, he was impressed by its mellow flavor and offered the inscription "Ping Zhong Li Quan", which can be traced to the Li Ji - or the Book of Rites- that praises Zhang's efforts in supporting revolution and depicts the wine as sweet manna from heaven.

It is the only time Sun wrote an inscription for an enterprise in his life. The original writing is rated as a national first-level cultural relic and is now at the Yantai Museum.

Changyu issued the product in honor of the 100th anniversary of Sun's inscription and the 120th anniversary of the founding of the company that will be celebrated next year.