In the business of selling fine wines
There’s been plenty of change in the local wine scene over winter, from new winemakers to business sales, including that of Kahurangi Estate Distribution Ltd. When Greg and Amanda Day sold their vineyard and leased their cellar door at Upper Moutere, they were also keen to sell their liquor distribution business.
I don’t think even they realised what was happening behind closed doors. Put simply, their staff decided to buy the business with another shareholder. How the deal came about is one of those stories that could only happen in a rural area.
When Greg was at a function last November, he got talking with Dave Barrett, the former co-owner of the Sprig & Fern brewery and bar group as well as other businesses, and now co-owner of the Thorvald Cheese and Little River Cheese businesses.
Greg told Dave he had to buy the business. Dave refused, having promised his wife Sue they wouldn’t be getting involved in any more businesses for a while.
‘‘I got to my car, and Greg had left paperwork for me,’’ Dave says. ‘‘Sue mentioned it to Lynn Mabon, the general manager at Kahurangi Estate Ltd, and arranged to meet me to go over the figures for the business.’’
Sue worked in the office at Kahurangi, but little did she know that Lynn, Hadyn Ellis and their respective partners had considered making an offer for the business a few months earlier.
‘‘We almost made the offer because we know the business so well and know the potential it has, but we also recognised we needed someone with marketing skills to be the face of the business,’’ Lynn says.
Greg and Amanda Day’s daughter, Samantha Jones, has been running the sales and marketing in the key Auckland market for the business, and she was keen to stay involved.
When Lynn met Dave Barrett to go over the numbers, she told him that the group had been seriously considering making an offer, and maybe they could do something together. It all happened very quickly from there.
‘‘Someone else was also looking at making an offer, so the four couples got a deal together and bought the business in a two-week period,’’ says Lynn. ‘‘It was a bit crazy trying to carry on doing our jobs and putting a deal together at the same time.’’
The shareholders in the newly formed Kahurangi Estate Distribution all bring specialist skills to the business – ‘‘Hadyn in the bond store and warehouse, Sam in
‘‘We are working on where we need to be in the marketplace.’’
Dave Barrett, Kahurangi Estate Distribution
sales, me running the office, and Dave guides the branding and marketing for the business’’, says Lynn.
‘‘In a business like this, you need a front man to give a consistent message to the market, so that’s Dave’s role, too.’’
It may seem a little unusual for someone with a background in beer, fruit and veg and cheese to invest in a wine distribution business, but Dave has a diploma in viticulture, and worked for Mission Estate in sales and marketing.
‘‘It’s early days while we’re working through everything. We have a lot to learn and have some goals, but it’s still a new business. Even though we all know how the old business operated, we need to make it ours,’’ he says.
Kahurangi Estate Distribution is more than a virtual winery marketing someone else’s wines. It owns a number of brands, including Kahurangi Estate and associated brands Mount Arthur, Heaphy, The Cut, Tall Poppy and Trout Valley, as well as working with 10 growers from across the region, giving it a range of varieties of fruit from different subregions.
The business also has a big range of imported wines, some of which are imported in bulk and bottled here, including wines from Spain, Italy and Australia.
‘‘We are working on where we need to be in the marketplace with our wines, so we’re quietly reviewing where our wines sit in the market,’’ says Dave.
‘‘We have wines at each price point, from entry level to premium, and we want to use our resources to focus more on the mid to premium range of wines.’’
Dave says he thinks Nelson is a serious wine-producing region but is often overlooked or not recognised – something he and his fellow Kahurangi Estate Distribution owners are keen to remedy.