Receivership leaves ‘lake’ of wine
About 100,000 litres of Gewurztraminer to be sold
Avast “wine lake” of 100,000 litres of Gewurztraminer is currently waiting to be sold at a Poverty Bay vineyard, which has gone into receivership. Prominent vintner Nick Nobilo, who in 2000 founded the Vinoptima Estate near Gisborne, said 100,000 litres of Gewurztraminer had been accumulated from the vines.
It is now under the control of BDO receiver Andrew McKay in Auckland after an unnamed shareholder pulled the plug in August. McKay said a “sizeable” amount of wine was to be sold but thought it was 100,000 bottles.
He is in discussions to sell the wine and hopes to get a top price.
“It’s only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. I don’t know what we’ll get. The only way is to test the market and I’m talking to lots of people,” McKay said.
Whether creditors are paid depends on the December 4 property auction and the wine could be sold simultaneously, he said. Another vineyard business could buy all the wine “and blend it”, he said. McKay, said he had never sold that much wine before and his first report will be issued on Friday.
Nobilo, whose vineyard website says he is “regarded as a pioneer of the modern New Zealand wine industry”, said the wine was all stored in vats and none was bottled.
People in the area said they had heard of 100,000 bottles being stored on the estate but Nobilo revealed far more. If decanted into standard 750ml, it could yield more than 133,000 bottles of the premium variety which Vinoptima advertises for $75/bottle, meaning the “lake” could be worth more than $9m.
Nobilo was the estate’s managing director and winemaker on the 9ha property which Bayleys says is in two titles. Nobilo said the vineyard produced around 40,000 bottles annually between its first vintage in 2004 and 2015. So the “lake” appears to be at least two seasons of production.
Kevin Courtney, a vintner of Marlborough’s Riverby Estate, said 100,000 litres was “large” considering the premium nature of the wine and specialised niche market which he said was mainly overseas.
The wine might only fetch $3.50/litre to $4.50/litre, yielding as little as $350,000, well short of the $9m it could be worth if it was bottled and exported, he said.
Vinoptima shareholders are major Gisborne landowner Wi Pere Investments, Taupo’s Tuaropaki Kaitiaki, Nobilo Trustee, DMG Trustees and Nick Nobilo. Nobilo said one of the shareholders had called up an advance to the business.