I guess it could be done, like Pineapples grown in the Paris area. But not sure as a business you can make a profit as mentioned costs and cheaper wine like Paris grown Pineapple cost a lot to grow !
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Well, i suppose i am saying his business model wont be revealed publicly online and i have no idea. But given costs and markets, i personally see it working. But it wont work easily. There will be frustrations. And frankly, the people that actually put in effort and persevere, can absolutely do well. Land here is expensive, government is no efficeint and more or less moronic, but he lnd itself has the majority of the worlds climates so should be possible. failure is almost certainly human related, not grape in taiwan related (although failure probably will be blamed on geography and biology).
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Try a more suitable country.
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HK vinyards? 
I wish. Iâd buy that. Out if principle.
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I think he means follow global warming. Western canada will be a hotspot, while california burns. As an example.
I do not understand. For instance 500,000 is that TWD?
I already sell of French wines in Taiwan per year about 30 000 bottles. A vineyard in Taiwan producing good quality wine should make 45HL/hectare. For a vineyard, a reasonable size to be very fair in cost would be 10 hectares. 10 hectares would produce in average 60 000 bottles of 75cl. So to sell the whole production only in Taiwan shouldnât be an issue. We produce red wine for 200 years in my family in the right bank of Bordeaux-France. The big issue is first precipitations & humidity, second heat. That absolutly needs the right place to have the plants. About soil, volcanic can be excellent. Furthermore 80% of the quality of a wine doesnât cost much if you work with the right skills.
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Yes, ntd. Everything inside taiwan uses NTD. For 10 hectares, at around 11 fen per hectare lets say you get a cheap price and can actually buy land (not just lease it from the government or aboriginals) at a very cheap price of 700,000/ fen that leaves you at 77million ntd. About 2million plus euro, just for the dirt. Thats all easy and depends on your business plan. The rral issue is.literally water. And it isnt always as easy as you think. As your ideal growing conditions are very limiting factors you may have to build roads and water which is now quite difficult in taiwan, unlike before. But possible. Hence why i personally suggest buying somewhere already developed. But will depend greatly on your soil types (incredibly variable in taiwan) and climate which is always changing here.
In flat lands we normally average out about 20,000 per fen to setup crops for organic and sustainable (long term) fields. Then labor and annual costs on top such as pest/weed control and nutrition. Every field is different of couurse, but that puts us at about 220k ntd per hectare, yours will be higher due to posts and training vines etc. And machinery, which isnt common here.
Water you will still need. Dont underestimate the weather here. As well as beaurocracy. It will either work amazingly easy, or astonishingly difficult. This will depend 100% on relationships, and it isnt all money related. Learn some chinese and some taiwanese and your costs will go down 5 or 6 digits for this project.
Water issue being huge, getting registration for diggig might be a bit of a delay. Having them build cisterns takes a year or 2. As an example, it costs us $330,000 each for a 100 ton concrete cistern. Takes 2 years to be finishedâŚgood news is the government will reimburse you fully afterwards if you are certifying organic. As an example, flat land vegetable.production with water conservation in mind we use about 2 tonnes every 2 weeks per fen. In summers like last year it is about 8 tons per week per fen. Note that mos mountain areas are rockier and sloped, so you will use more than that. If.you use rows and not net water evaporaion is much higher though being.in the mountains it will also be less so mileage may vary. Hard to guess. We use as a bare minimum 2x 100 ton per hectare as a minimum. Our new farm of 2 hectares we just dug a 900 ton pond which allows us more margin for error. Digging a pond in the hills with be 30,000, the plastic another 45 or 50000 and labor. I suspect 1 such pond.can be stretched to maximum 3 hectares as a guess, but every valley and every mountain is totally different here. Of course when doing things on a larger scale wholesale brings price down, but probably not much.
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Dear Explant, once again your information is extremly interesting.
The prices of the lands you are mentioning are the most horrifying point. 2 million Euro for 10 hectares is leading to a point where I would give up. To give you an idea for 250 000NT per fen, you can have satellite St Emilion (Bordeaux France) vineyard already planted. And you would have your wine sold in Taiwan retail shop for 800/1000NT/Btle. Our revenue is not big, but we are capilizing on the estate even if we loan from the bank the price of the land. May be I should study to lease. 
The spot I found interesting microclimatewise is at around 1000 m altitude in the near Taichung city but already in Nantou county. There are several campings, cherry trees, tea production, some farming etc⌠Did these guys bought the land so expensive? I wonder how they can make a living. By the way; I guess it is already what you call a developped area since there are many roads, sanitary for the campingsâŚ
Labor and annual costs, plantation donât frighten me. About machinery, one tractor with sprayer, plus a smaller alternative tractor is fine. The monthly rain in April-september seem more than enough for my needs if we collect it as we usually do in France. Quality wine grapes donât like rain and the roots dig several meters down to find its water & nutritions. I fear too much water & humidity than the opposite. Rich soils and water can be fine for grapes to eat but definitivly bad for grapes for quality wine.
Even if I like concrete cistern for wine, stainless steel tanks is very fine and can be purchased anywhere. Even continental China, & delivered quite fast cheaper than Europe.
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In fact, I will do it in Taiwan or I wonât do it. My daughter would prefer I spend more time with our horses, our vineyards and my French rice wine production. www.leguishu.com We are a very small producer of rice in France. (In Camargue, the delta of the RhĂ´ne river, in the Provence region).
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You wont find land to purchase for 250,000/fen here. It was possible before, but not now. Probably a 50 year lease from an aboriginal owner can be had for that.
Renting land from the government might be the best bet. Note that you need a taiwanese citizen that is both a registered farmer and has a degree in agriculture to be able to rent regular government farmland. Alternatives to not having the degree would be renting land from the military or Taitung for example, but good chance they dont have lnd where you are looking.
Gov land is reelased on an auction system so you are not garaunteed even if you have money. Usually they will give you 5 years and you can renew it twice giving you 15 total.
Taiwan isnt an easy country to deal with. It is small, over populated, not.that open to foreigners legally and is now starting to try and fix all its past mistakes so its a relatively big hurdle to get 10 hectares where you wantâŚmaybe try western canada? Way cheaper and becoming quite suitble for wine production.
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Southern British Columbia in Canada has plenty of suitable land for your kind of business. For the time being the prices there are still affordable.
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I understand. But I donât try to plant a vineyard. We do that regularly in our area. 1,5 hectares 2 years ago, 21 hectares in 2014 ⌠It is the fact to do it in Taiwan which I like.
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Are you farming in Taiwan? What are you doing? I am interested to know. 
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I have to double check these information, of course. But as mentioned before, if the price is too high, then it loses its interest. And lease should be 50 years, at least more than 20 âŚ
Yes we do a lot of agriculture, forestry and manufacturing work in taiwan for a while, amongst other things. Wont get into too many personal details online, but welcome to message me if you want.
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Do you have email, or WhatsApp or else? Me:
Email: osublett@leguishu.com
Tel & WhatsApp: + 33 6 0728 0569
I always press the wrong button âŚ
Since we could say that the life of a wine plant after 50 years in good conditions is kind of optimum, then a reasonable lease for 30 years, with an automatic reconduction of 20 years could be studied. Since we are going for stainless steel tanks rather than concrete and everything in the same way, like a cellar in wood. (My daughter is building with wood this year 7000M2 for her horses, houses âŚ) . It means that we can move to another place, may be better & simply close the first one. For instance.
Yes, you are right. Stainless steel tanks are more practical in this situation. Cheaper, moveable etc. Leaks will be dealt with so not a super issue. Most importantly, the government doesnt require you to apply for permission to place âtemporary water tanksâ on the land. That would be great far better route for sureâŚ
In fact at the end of the lease, we can cut all the old vine plants (It is excellent for BBQ) & move the cellar to another place after one year. The brand will belong to the company & will move with the place. Not a big deal.
Good to see that you are positive on something. (Just teasing you:grin:)
âLeaks will be dealt with so not a super issue.â I have no idea of what leaks you can be talking about.
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