New Zealand's Matakana searches for buyer

A New Zealand winery more than a century old has gone into liquidation.

Matakana Estate, the largest winery in the Matakana region and with a history of grape-growing going back to 1902, and its sister company Goldridge Estate, are up for sale after failing to secure financial backing for a costly expansion plan.

Digby Noyce, of liquidators RES Corporate Services, told Decanter.com, ‘The owners… were looking at getting investors but with the current climate and the oversupply it was not a good time to do that.’

The business, which is thought to produce around 500,000 cases each year, is now up for sale.

Noyce claimed it was ‘business as usual’ while the company looked for a buyer.

Matakana and Goldridge Estate produced wines with grapes from Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne as well as Matakana.

Local newspaper the Marlborough Express reported one Hawke’s Bay grower has only been paid 20% of monies owed for the 2010 vintage.

The liquidation is the latest in a string of failed wineries in New Zealand including Cape Campbell, Gravitas and Otuwhero Estate Wines.

Written by Rebecca Gibb in Auckland

Explore More

Rebecca Gibb MW is a wine journalist and editor who has also founded Bamboozled games, ‘the world’s first wine and spirit puzzle makers’. Having spent six years living in New Zealand, she has recently returned to her native north-east England. While in New Zealand, she became a Master of Wine, graduating top of her class and winning the Madame Bollinger medal for excellence in tasting. A former winner of both the UK’s young wine writer of the year and the Louis Roederer Emerging Wine Writer, her first book The Wines of New Zealand was published in 2018. She also runs wine events and has her own consultancy business The Drinks Project. She was a judge at the 2019 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).