Château Zhang Lafitte

Lafite is the “it” wine in China, it's the first of the First Growths, the crème de la crème. A certain amount of Lafite's popularity in China appears to be due to its Chinese name, Lafei, which is relatively easy to pronounce. But most agree Lafite and other Bordeaux names win because they established themselves early on as the luxury brands of choice. Indeed Lafite has recently announced plans to create its own vineyards in China. Château Lafite Rothschild has partnered with CITIC, China's largest state-owned investment company, on over 60 acres of vines on the peninsula of Penglai in Shandong province. The Penglai peninsula is on its easternmost tip of the province and wine companies there already produce Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Some say the region is China's Bordeaux. The latitude of Penglai is the same as Bordeaux and the Napa Valley – 37º. However there is already a full scale French château bearing the name of “Laffitte” in Beijing.

Château Zhang Laffitte was built by a Beijing real estate developer named Zhang Yuchen and is the the oriental twin of Château Maisons Laffitte, the French architect François Mansart's 1650 landmark on the Seine. Its symmetrical façade and soaring slate roof were crafted using the historic blueprints, 10,000 photographs and the same white Chantilly stone. China's new rich can rent its rooms and buy homes amid the ponds, equestrian trails and golf course on Mr. Zhang's 1.5-square-mile estate.

The inspiration to create the château came to Mr Zhang in the year 2000. Mr Zhang became interested in French culture through reading the French literature of Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Gustave Flaubert. He hired Françoise Onillon, a Paris-based architectural expert, as an adviser and planned a two-week trip through Bordeaux, Burgundy and Beaujolais to see historic châteaux. But the day Mr. Zhang arrived he wanted to begin immediately so they visited Château Maisons Laffitte, just 12 miles outside Paris.

René de Longueil, a wealthy nobleman, built Château Maisons Laffitte as a royal hunting lodge in the mid 17th century. He hired Mansart, later the architect of Versailles, who designed the central building with pyramidal symmetry that became a benchmark of French classical architecture.

Ultimately, Mr. Zhang decided he wanted something grander. So he returned several times to France. He designed a garden to resemble the one in Versailles, with its statues of Greek mythological figures. Two wings he built to house hotel guests were copies of the royal apartments at Fontainebleau. After a visit to Rome, he added a semicircular colonnade to enclose the courtyard. There are even grape vines in the garden. Mr Zhang also dug a deep, broad moat to defend the château. Security guards are dressed in French-style uniforms complete with capes and kepis and Bacchus is the château's artistic theme, making bacchanal the subject of the giant fountain in the garden, frescoes on the façade and the painting covering the dome inside the atrium. It is reputed to have cost Mr Zhang $50 million to create his vision.

Château Zhang Laffitte is used as a high standard business hotel with a Chinese Restaurant and a French Restaurant, 72 suites and is used for corporate events and formal functions (China Central Television, the state's leading propaganda arm, recorded a New Year's Eve special inside the château). Mr Zhang's private wine cellar there is stocked with 2,000 bottles of France's finest wines.

Mr Zhang is building 550 luxury homes around the château - half the homes have already been snapped up despite building being in progress.