Buy out pledges to reposition Barossa Valley as global premium brand
Barossa Valley wines are set to be relaunched on the global market as a premium brand wine following the purchase of the wine assets of the estate by New Zealand’s Delegat Group.
Jim Delegat of Delegat Group
The group secured the purchase of South Australia’s Barossa Valley Estate after supermarket giant Woolworths backed out of the competition.
The purchase, valued at $24.7 million, was announced to the New Zealand Stock Exchange on Friday.
"We really have aspirations to building a truly global wine business,” said managing director Jim Delegat.
“For the last 18 months we have been evaluating what opportunities the Australian wine industry would offer us and it was clear that the industry is coming out of the bottom of its cycle.
"We identified that clearly the Barossa is the iconic wine growing region of the Australian industry, and especially for Barossa shiraz. What we would like to bring to South Australia is additional investment in vineyards, and either acquiring vineyards or planting vineyards.
He added that he wanted to reposition the Barossa Valley Estate brands as premium offerings.
"Our vision is to ultimately see Barossa Valley Estate as one of Australia's leading super-premium global wine brand producers,” he said.
Chinese competitors were understood to be interested in acquiring the brand following the announcement that it had gone into receivership earlier in the year.