Winery a bargain for KiwiSaver provider
The new owners of the troubled Mahana Estates winery plan to move quickly to produce a 2019 vintage at the upmarket site.
KiwiSaver fund provider Booster has bought the major assets of Mahana, near Nelson, which was placed in receivership last year following a drawnout legal dispute between its former owner and investors.
Booster bought Mahana’s fourlevel winery, cellar door tasting room, restaurant and function centre from the receivers, as well as its
21-hectare vineyard. Seifried Estate winery bought another Mahana asset, a 9ha sauvignon blanc vineyard in Hope.
The purchase prices were not disclosed for commercial reasons.
Booster announced that the Mahana purchase would add to its other wine investments – Marlborough’s Awatere River, Nelson’s Waimea Estates, Sileni Estates in Hawke’s Bay and Bannock Brae in Central Otago – to form the Booster Wine Group.
Booster managing director Allan Yeo said it was great to bring the Mahana assets back into New Zealand ownership, and the company would move quickly to get the winery producing premium wines this vintage.
He estimated it would take three or four weeks to fully recommission the winery, allowing it to produce its maximum capacity of
600 tonnes of grapes.
‘‘Moving forward we think there is certainly room to add the same again to capacity,’’ he said.
‘‘We are rapt to be able to buy a facility like this that you would normally only find in Bordeaux or Oregon, and to be able to buy it for a more reasonable price than the money that was spent building it.’’
Yeo said the Mahana site would be the production base for the group’s premium and super premium wines, which would be sold under its existing brands.
The company also planned to reestablish the restaurant and cellar door at the site.
It was considering whether the function venue could work without compromising wine-making.
‘‘We are really pleased that the site doesn’t become tumbleweed country,’’ he said.
Seifried Estate winemaker Chris Seifried said the Nelsonbased winery’s purchase meant it owned nine vineyards across the Waimea Plains.
‘‘We have been planting more vineyards in the last couple of years but we were running out of land available for planting in grapes. We have a lot of other vineyards on the Waimea Plains, within a couple of kilometres of that particular block, so it suits our operation quite well.’’
The vineyard had organic certification which Seifried said was particularly exciting.
‘‘The vineyard is all sauvignon blanc which is what New Zealand is known for and what we are exporting so it should be really good.’’
It was likely the wine produced from the new block would be sold under the Seifried brand, with a portion sold locally and the rest exported.
He estimated
an
additional 100,000 bottles of wine would be produced from the new vineyard.
‘‘We are quite excited because this year obviously we have had such dry weather and hopefully it bodes well for a good harvest so we will be picking the grapes there in late March, early April.’’
The upmarket lodge at the Mahana site, which can accommodate 14 guests, is still for sale.
Bayleys viticulture specialist Mike Poff, who brokered the winery sales, said he was in talks with a number of commercial accommodation providers regarding the lodge.
Following a High Court trial last year, former Mahana Estates owner Glenn Schaeffer was ordered to pay $3.3 million after a judge found he misled United States investors.
The former US casino developer was sued by Las Vegas entertainment executives James Murren and Daniel Lee, who invested in the Nelson business.