Changyu Wine City

China’s oldest and largest wine producer, Changyu Pioneer Wine, has opened the doors to its new $900 million wine tourism complex located in the port town of Yantai, Shandong province, to promote the country’s growing domestic wine industry as well as attract international buyers and visitors.

Set over 2,000 acres and built with the help of the designers of Disneyland, Changyu “Wine City” features a gothic-style châteaux where enthusiasts can experience the wine culture of China as well as enjoy the most popular imported wines and brandies.

The new site is home to a national wine research institute, which has been designed to appear like an oak barrel surrounded by towering champagne flutes as well as a wine production centre complete with vineyards and grape planting areas.

The production centre, which went into operation in August 2016, is one of the most advanced in China, with a high level of automation and information management as well as the world’s most efficient production line, which has been imported from Germany.

The facility alone sprawls over 220,000 square metres making it one of the world’s largest wine and brandy production plants with an annual capacity for 250,000 tons of wine and 150,000 tons of brandy.

Having previously witnessed subsidence and cracking in uncoated concrete substrates, Changyu recognised the need for a long-term, hard-wearing and protective floor coating system that would be able to cope with the corrosive and staining effects of wine production as well as the constant stream of heavy vehicular traffic traversing the large-scale complex.

In addition, hygiene and the need to protect against contamination risk, was a significant factor in selecting a suitable floor finish that could provide the right degree of protection.

More than 20,000 square metres of Flowcrete Asia’s Flowfresh MF, a cementitious polyurethane floor screed containing a natural silver-ion based antimicrobial additive, was selected for installation in all bottling zones at Changyu in a striking dark green shade.

Flowfresh MF provides a durable, easily cleaned flooring surface with excellent chemical resistance, thermal shock resistance and stain resistance credentials.

Designed originally for application in the food and beverage industry, the Flowfresh range of flooring is endorsed by HACCP International certification; a globally recognised stamp that assures the material meets a wide range of punishing criteria and is suitable for food-grade applications including in both wet and dry processing areas.

Flowfresh not only meets the strict standards of HACCP International, but the range’s antibacterial properties go beyond even industry guidelines with the inclusion of a natural antimicrobial additive that eliminates the spread of up to 99.9% of bacteria landing on the surface of the floor in between wash cycles.

The manner in which Polygiene’s unique, all-natural silver-ion technology is incorporated throughout the polyurethane matrix of Flowfresh means that even after a decade and a half, the floor won’t have lost any of its bactericidal power. This contrasts starkly to antibacterial treatments that rely on chemical coatings, which are prone to wearing away over time.

Changyu Pioneer Wine, which produces brands such as ‘Great Wall’ and ‘Dynasty’, was established in 1892, when cuttings from Bordeaux, Burgundy and Alsace were planted in Yantai.

In 2002, the company built its first French-style château – Château Changyu-Castel – in Yantai in cooperation with the Castel Group, planted primarily with Cabernet Gernischt – a red variety similar to Cabernet Franc.

It has since added a further five châteaux to its portfolio, three of which are operational.

The project at “Wine City” comes at a time where the changing tastes of the burgeoning middle class in China are notable. In 2014, China overtook France as the biggest consumer of red wine, and it is on track to become the second biggest consumer of wine in the world by 2020, drinking 6.1 billion litres annually, which is up 40% from 2016, according to International Wine & Spirit Research.