One of the great names in wine-making, Domaines Barons de Rothschild, said Sunday it plans to develop a vineyard in China to take advantage of growing interest in wine here.

Chateau Lafite has a very high reputation on China and has partnered with CITIC, China’s largest state-owned investment company on 62 acres of vines on a peninsula in eastern China’s Shandong province.

“I am very pleased to develop a vineyard in a country where the interest in fine wines is increasing every year.”

One Beijing-based billionaire has splashed out a record $500,000 on 27 bottles of red wine, London-based Antique Wine Company said on Saturday.

The anonymous Chinese entrepreneur bought a mix of vintages of Romanee Conti, a Burgundy wine and considered to be among the world’s most exclusive with only 450 cases produced each year.[...]

“It is the highest price that has ever been achieved for a single lot,” Managing Director Stephen Williams of the London- based Antique Wine Company told Reuters on Saturday.

“I don’t think he has bought this as an investment — he has bought it to drink,” he added. “The fine wine industry is completely immune from the global credit crunch.”