Image Credit: Seppeltsfield
Australian Vintage, which has been struggling with debt, recently announced that while its sales will be in line with last year’s, those sales are “lower than internal expectations”. On Thursday, its chairman Richard Davis announced his resignation, effective immediately, with non-executive director John Davies acting as chairman until a suitable replacement is found. It’s amidst these struggles that the Australian Vintage has ended its lease of the Balranald vineyard in New South Wales and its Lyndoch Barossa Valley vineyard has been sold to the iconic wine giant Seppeltsfield. This reduces Australian Vintage’s total number of vineyards to seven.
The Lyndoch vineyard is a large 230 acres. Seppeltsfield now owns over 4000 acres in the Barossa Valley which grow 10,000 tonnes of grapes and produce nearly 10 million bottles of luxury wine every year.
The Lyndoch vineyard purchase was made by Seppeltsfield to cater to a rapidly growing market in China. Chinese tariffs were removed from bottled Australian wines on the 28th of March this year, and since then exports have skyrocketed, with Australian winemakers shipping 86 million dollars worth of wine to China in the month after the tariffs lifted.
Seppeltsfield’s new vineyard purchase aims to specifically feed the newly created demand for luxury Australian wines in China. China’s demand for luxury Australian wines prior to the tariffs was strong enough to begin with. The Lyndoch vineyard acquisition gives Seppeltsfield the opportunity to fortify their supply volumes of luxury wines for this thirsty market.
The Lyndoch vineyard itself has a long history. It was part of the original Chateau Yaldara property developed by Hermann Thumm in 1946. But the vineyard is not as old as its new owners, whose history dates back to 1851, nearly a hundred years prior.
The Lyndoch vineyard is planned to mature Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mataro and Grenache. The entire crop with be crushed through the 1888 Gravity Flow winery at Seppeltsfield in 2025.
For More Information: seppeltsfield.com.au/seppeltsfield-snaps-up-another-large-barossa-valley-vineyard-for-luxury-wine-exports-to-china/
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