Paritua Vineyard sale 'positive'

The purchase of the Paritua Vineyard by Chinese-led interests was "unquestionably positive" for the Bay's wine industry, vice chairman of Hawke's Bay Winegrowers Xan Harding has said.

Mr Harding, who spent several years working in China where he developed a solid knowledge of business practices there, said the trade prospects between Hawke's Bay and China in terms of red wine exports were potentially huge.

"Wine sales are going ballistic in China," Mr Harding said.

"And 95 per cent of those wine sales are reds."

The 68-ha vineyard, off SH50 near Bridge Pa, was sold by Bayleys Hawke's Bay which worked in with receivers Grant Thornton.

It had originally been planted with 54ha of vines in 2003-04, and last year produced about 20,000 cases of wine, but Bayleys director Glynn Rees-Jones said it had the potential to increase that to 30,000 through additional cropping - adding that further expansion would enable the vineyard to produce 60,000 cases of wine.

Mr Harding said he had met two shareholders of the new ownership when there was an official welcome for them on the day they took possession, last Friday.

They were New Zealand-based Chinese with citizenship of New Zealand.

It is understood the new winery company is part of the aquaculture-orientated Oriental Ocean group which has also been looking at a fish and seafood-breeding venture at Opotiki in the Bay of Plenty.