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phoenix finance news on september 10, bloomberg reported that alibaba group co-founder and chairman of the board joseph tsai joined other billionaires in investing in france's prestigious vineyards.

tsai, 60, is an avid wine collector. he and others, including oliver weisberg, ceo of tsai's family office blue pool capital, have acquired a vineyard in burgundy, according to people familiar with the matter.

joseph tsai

representatives for mr. tsai and mr. weisberg declined to comment.

tsai’s investment in french vineyards puts him in the company of other ultra-wealthy wine investors like luxury goods tycoon bernard arnault, founder of lvmh, and the bouygues, dassault, perrodo, pinault and rothschild families who bought estates as their empires expanded. tsai’s investment in a property that doesn’t produce red wine but is located in the highly regarded appellation of burgundy.

a vineyard in the gevrey-chambertin region of france

corporate documents show the plots are in gevrey-chambertin in the cote de nuits region, known as burgundy’s champs-élysées. many of the region’s wines earn the highest “grand cru” designation and can sell for hundreds of dollars or more a bottle.

also in the côte de nuits are clos des lambrays, which is controlled by lvmh, and clos de tart, which the pinault family bought in 2017 for a reported €220 million (us$243 million), when francois pinault, the patriarch of the pinault family, beat out alibaba co-founder jack ma to take control of the property.

according to the documents, the plots owned by tsai chongxin's investment group are located in the charmes-chambertin, mazoyeres-chambertin and ruchottes-chambertin appellations. maps and photos published on the official burgundy wine website show that these plots are adjacent to each other and are famous for pinot noir grapes. the region is located south of dijon and its wine was awarded the title of "grand cru" in 1937.

land registry data show that one plot of land was sold for about 18 million euros in 2021. it is not clear how much the group has invested in total.

wealth diversification

tsai, a yale university alumnus and former hockey player, quit his $700,000-a-year job at investment firm investor ab in the late 1990s to join alibaba for just $50 a month. tsai has a net worth of about $6.9 billion, according to the bloomberg billionaires index, partly from his 1.4% stake in alibaba.

through blue pool capital, tsai has diversified his wealth into luxury real estate in portugal and a penthouse on new york's billionaires' row. he also backs the film studio ink factory and controls two basketball teams, the brooklyn nets and new york liberty, as well as the barclays center where they play. in 2020, he gave away bottles of branded wine to enthusiastic nets fans.

tsai and weisberg were also co-producers of marie-ange gorbanevsky's 2019 documentary film "l'ame du vin" (the soul of wine), which profiled vineyards in the region they invest in. bloomberg reported that tsai was among the executives invited by french president emmanuel macron to lunch at the elysee palace ahead of the opening of the paris olympics.