Chateau Nine Peaks’ founder: Dr. Karl H. Hauptmann
 

 
Dr. Karl H. Hauptmann was born in Gelnhausen, Germany.
He is the founder of Chateau Nine Peaks with a background in finance and experience with leading financial institutions.
He also founded Telor Capital Management – a private equity family office with its seat in Prague, Czech Republic.
Before that he was based in London and served as Managing Director of Merrill Lynch International and as a VP of Bankers Trust International.
 
As a wine lover, he also has his winery investments in many countries around the world, besides China in Bulgaria, Romania, South Africa and Israel.
Karl believes China has the potential to become a major destination in the world wine market and that Chinese terroir can produce highest quality wines to be recognized worldwide.



1.    What’s your role in Chateau Nine Peaks?
I’m the founder, owner and chairman.
 


2. What bottle sparked your love of wine?
Chateau Haut-Brion 1961.
 

 
3.What or who inspired you to the wine industry?
My love to wine and my feeling of understanding the products and it’s production economics lead me to believe
that investing in wine is great ‘pension insurance’ as it requires a lot of money to invest upfront
and harvest the returns quite late but then for a very long time – if you work sustainably and do not make mistakes !
 

 
4.    What’s your favorite part of the job?
 

 
The tasting for the blend. So, after the fermentation of the wine, when we start to taste and try to decide which blending is the most suitable is my favorite job.
 
5.How did you arrive at the position you are in today?
I was a very hard-working senior manager in the Finance Business with my talent for mathematics, which is really very helpful in life...
 

 
6.If you could give your younger self advice when starting in this industry, what would it be?
To study hard and then to work with the best and unconventional wineries, California for example,
some Cote du Rhone where people would do the things differently, then us at Chateau Nine Peaks of course.
 

 
7.If you weren’t in wine industry, what would you be doing and why?
I did and still do a lot of other things anyway, but I love farming in general – field fruits and cattle.
 

 
8.When was your first trip to China?
1987 to Hongkong and then 1994 to Shenzhen.
 

 
9.What makes you most proud to be working in China?
Making different and new wines in China which nobody did before, like our top-class Chardonnay wines, our very dense Cabernet Gernischt and our brilliant, concentrated and still soft Petit Verdot.


 
10.What to date has been your most memorable wine experience in China?
Many of them, I think, like the city of Qingdao, Beijing and … Chateau Nine Peaks, too.
 

 
11.How did you meet Chateau Nine Peaks?
I met Chateau Nine Peaks by my friend, Sydney（photo below： Sydney with his lovely animals in C9P）who introduced me to Laixi and that land with which we expect to make the best wines in China.
 

 
12.What do you expect for Chateau Nine Peaks?
To make the best wines in China.
 

 
13.Where would your fantasy vineyard be?
Napa Valley, by far the most beautiful and interesting wines if you have enough time to wait for one hundred years.
 

 
14.What’s your ultimate food and wine pairing?
Baby goat with our Cabernet Gernischt.
 

  
15.What’s your go-to drink at the end of a long day?
Grappa Sperss by Angelo Gaja.
 

 
16.Whom do you most want to drink with on your 80th birthday?
My wife, my kids and grandkids. （Photo below: Karl with his family together.）
 

 
2018, Karl took his family to China for a short visit, as well as his polo team in which his two sons (photo below in middle:
No.2, Sasha & No.3, …) are the main players. And they won the champion of 2018 Beijing International Polo Open Tournament &” The Belt and Road” International Polo Open Tournament.
 

 

 





 


Karl's family and some employees of C9P celebrated together for the Championship Trophy.
 
Thumbs up for this enthusiastic off-site backup !