Wine distillery wastewater, commonly called vinasses, was treated by an anaerobic moving bed biofilm reactor (AMBBR) with 32.9 litre available volume. The reactor was filled with 66% cylindrical polyethylene supports with density 0.84 g cm−3 as a biofilm carrier. The reactor was sequentially mixed by a submerged centrifugal pump fixed to the bottom, and each mixing time just lasted 1.25 minutes. The organic loading rate (OLR) of the reactor were increased from 1.6 to 29.6 g sCOD l−1 d−1 (soluble chemical oxygen demands −sCOD) and hydraulic retention time (HRT) was decreased from 6.33 to 1.55 days accordingly. Soluble COD removal efficiency was 81.3–89.2% at an OLR of 29.6 g sCOD l−1d−1. At the end of the experiment, 83.4% total biomass was attached on support and the specific density of support in the reactor was 0.93–1.05 g cm−3, which increased by about 10.7–25% compared with that at the beginning of the study.