Vineyards pour billions into chateaus

Growth

The number of chateaus in Yantai will reach 150 by 2015, according to the Yantai Vine and Wine Office.

Besides Chinese wine heavyweights like Changyu, China Great Wall Wine Co Ltd and Dynasty Fine Wines Group Ltd, alcoholic drinks maker Kweichow Moutai Co is constructing a wine chateau.

However, industry experts said building and running a chateau in China isn't easy.

"Chateau builders may face crucial challenges from domestic and foreign wine heavyweights as they don't have parallel advantages in grape growing, wine-making techniques and marketing," said Li Hua, professor at Northwest Agriculture and Forest University.

Last April, Domaines Barons de Rothschild, Chateau Lafite's parent company, teamed up with CITIC Capital Holdings Ltd, China's largest State-owned investment company, to build a chateau in Penglai, a city on the easternmost tip of Shandong, one of China's largest wine-producing areas.

The vineyard around the chateau will reach 50 ha, which can produce 20,000 bottles of wine in its first production year, set for 2016.

More than 90 percent of the wines produced here target the Chinese market.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the sales volume and net profit of domestic wine producers declined in the first half of this year.

Meanwhile, Chinese customs figures show first-half wine imports rose 20.9 percent to 140.6 million liters, and the value of imported wines rose 8.2 percent to 535.3 million euros ($713.34 million).

The declining demand for domestic wines is casting a shadow on chateau development in the nation.

For example, Beijing's Yanqing county announced in July that it had stopped work on 40 of the 44 chateaus it had planned to build for next year's 11th International Conference on Grapevine Breeding and Genetics.

Li suggested that any vineyard planning to build a chateau should construct something unique, instead of just copying overseas facilities.

Lyu Chang contributed to this story.