How Expandia boss Vladislav Veselý turned wine into a resort

Vladislav Veselý, head of the investment group Expandia, decided not to limit himself to producing and selling bottled wine — that turned out to be a loss-making business. Instead, he built an entire wine resort, Artevini, in Moravia, complete with restaurants, tastings and a wellness zone, betting on experiences rather than the bottles themselves.

The idea grew out of Veselý's observations of workers at the Gumotex plant in Břeclav — a maker of inflatable boats and car components that is also part of Expandia's portfolio. He noticed how employees would rush off to their vineyards after their shift to make it before sunset. In the end, the South Moravian passion for winemaking caught the businessman himself.

“We lose quite a lot of money on winemaking — we're talking several million crowns a year,” Veselý admits candidly. But, he says, within a few years Artevini could reach far more pleasant numbers. The secret lies in changing the business model: instead of relying solely on wine sales, the group — whose revenue topped three billion crowns two years ago — built a complex where accommodation, gastronomy and relaxation play the leading role.

The wine brand, which used to operate in Znojmo with no option for visitors to tour the cellars or production facility, moved after Expandia bought it to the area around Velké Pavlovice, where the new resort has now grown up. “When I first stood on the slope above Velké Pavlovice, it was clear that this place deserved more than just a new wine-production facility. From the very start we looked for architects who would listen to the landscape rather than change it,” Veselý recalls.

The project was designed by the studio Znamení čtyř: wine production is hidden underground, while the restaurants, rooms and public spaces open onto panoramic views of 21 hectares of vineyards. The building uses a system of 72 geothermal wells 200 metres deep, and the heat given off during wine production is used to warm the pool and jacuzzi in the wellness zone. Rainwater is collected in underground tanks with a capacity of 300 cubic metres to irrigate the vineyards.

Besides Gumotex and Artevini, the Expandia investment group led by Veselý owns several hotels and administrative and logistics centres, and in the past its portfolio also included an internet bank, the yarn maker Vlnap, the textile plant Vigona and the furniture company Ton. The Artevini example shows how an entrepreneur is willing to invest in a direction that looks loss-making at first glance, building a far more profitable ecosystem of experiences around it.