AUSTRALIAN Vintage Ltd (AVL) has sold the Barossa Valley Yaldara winery and brand for $15.5million to 1847 Winery, a company owned by Sydney-based Chinese interests.
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AVL will retain the prime 41-hectare Yaldara vineyard and will continue to process its grapes in the 10,000-tonne grape-crush-capacity Yaldara winery for two years.
Neil McGuigan, AVL’s CEO-chief winemaker, told me last week that during those two years, AVL would explore various options for the long-term processing of its grapes from the Barossa, Adelaide Hills and other South Australian areas.
A key objective in the deal had been to keep the Yaldara vines, which included a planting he had initiated of the classic Italian red variety montepulciano.
He believed the grape had a great future in Australia and this had been borne out recently when the McGuigan 2013 Shortlist Montepulciano won a 56-point gold medal and the trophy for the best 2013-14 other varieties dry red at the 2014 Cowra Wine Show.
The deal gives 1847 Winery nine hectares of vines next to the winery and Yaldara’s portfolio of fortified wines. Settlement was subject to 1847 obtaining a liquor licence for the winery, which was expected to occur towards the end of the year.
Neil said AVL currently employed 16 staff on-site at Yaldara and employment would be offered to some of these employees by 1847 Winery after settlement.
AVL would retain two of its senior winemakers, who would continue to produce the company’s super-premium wine on-site during the next two years.
He said the $15.5million proceeds of the sale of the winery and brand would initially be used to reduce AVL’s debt.
Yaldara was established in 1947 by German winemaker, Hermann Thumm, and became part of what is now AVL in 2002.
The property at Lyndoch, which has a magnificent chateau-style cellar door and function rooms, has long been a major tourist magnet in the Barossa.
THE 1847 Winery company had its beginnings in the 1990s when former Sydney property developer John Curnow and wife Sue bought two Barossa Valley vineyards, one of which was the site of the original land grant made to Orlando founder Johann Gramp in 1847.
That historic link inspired the Curnows to launch their 1847 wine brand in 2004.
Using grapes from their own vineyards and from contract growers, they built a major wine export business with sales to China, Hong Kong, the US, Canada, Hungary and Singapore.
John Curnow said last week he and Sue had sold the business three years ago to Sydney-based Chinese investors, who now had a 30-strong chain of 1847 liquor stores in China. John has stayed on as chief executive of 1847 Winery, which now has 60hectares of established Barossa vineyard and 20hectares of new plantings.
Over the years, production of 1847 wines had been carried out in a number of different wineries and the purchase of Yaldara would give the company its own processing facility and cellar door from which to build domestic sales of the 1847 and Yaldara brand wines. Until now, exports had made up 90per cent of 1847 Winery’s production, with sales in Australia just mail order.
LINDSAY McCall, the schoolteacher-turned-winemaker who has built Mornington Peninsula’s Paringa Estate into one of Australia’s top boutique producers, will preside over tastings of his wines in Newcastle on Saturday.
The tastings will be held between 11.30am and 1pm at the Lambton Fridge, 86 Elder Street, Lambton.
Wine guru James Halliday has given Paringa five red stars in his Australian Wine Companion and has special praise for the pinot noir and shiraz.
THE Grant Burge 2012 Miamba Shiraz reviewed today in Wine List recalls a fondly remembered red brand of the past. I enjoyed many an Orlando Miamba shiraz in the 1960s and 1970s. But the Miamba vineyard had been ripped out when Grant Burge bought the land in 1983. He replanted vines, bringing the site back to its former glory.
BOB McLeish reckons the McLeish Estate 2007 Cellar Reserve Semillon has established a position as the most awarded, premier semillon in Australia.
Speaking in Sydney after he was he was presented on Friday with 2014 Australian Boutique Wine Awards trophies for the best semillon and the best white wine, he said his family company had made 2014 a milestone year by winning seven trophies with its whites.
