He had never even seen a “Tibetan Antelope,” as the estate was newly named.

“Look, I took it very badly,” he said. “They debaptized it. It’s bizarre. Animals, I’ve got nothing against them. But, come on, ‘Tibetan Antelope’? Where are they coming from with that one?”

They are coming from a desire to draw an important link to China, which has become the destination for some 20 percent of the wine produced in Bordeaux. As much as 80 percent of the wine produced by the Chinese owners goes straight to China and is never seen in France.

‘‘This is not about traditional Chinese culture,’’ said a leading French Sinologist, Jean-Philippe Béja of Sciences Po. ‘‘It is about marketing.”

But he disputed that the strategy was in fact a good one.

“This is imitating ‘Made in China,’ which doesn’t even have a good reputation,’’ he said. ‘‘The interest, for the Chinese, is to have something foreign that belongs to them.”

Perhaps for that reason the Chinese invasion has been limited to perhaps 3 percent of the roughly 6,000 chateaus in the Bordelais region. The Chinese also have not bought any of the most celebrated wine producers, opting instead for the middling and lesser-ranked.