Nocton Vineyard set for multi-million sale

ONE of Tasmania’s most well-established vineyards is up for sale and is expected to achieve a muti-million-dollar price tag.

Nocton Vineyard near Richmond was established by Chinese owners in 1999 and is currently headed up by director Charlie Sun.

The 608ha property, which includes a 35ha vineyard, has a government valuation of more than $10 million and is expected to attract strong interest from potential investors across the globe.

With well-established wine labels, until recent years, the vineyard focused on selling much of its wine into the Chinese export market.

Nutrien Harcourts agent Andrew Fisher said it was unusual for a privately owned vineyard and property of this scale to come on the market.

“Vineyards change hands quite regularly, but rarely of a corporate scale,” he said.

“We deal very regularly in vineyards that have sold up the Tamar Vallery and places like that, but not often do they come in a corporate scale with an established label and reputation already that you can build on.”

Mr Fisher said the property has the size and location to offer significant development opportunities.

“There’s 35ha planted and there’s probably at least another 200ha that you could plant as well so that sort of scale is hard to get,” he said.

Mr Fisher said the given the property’s potential he was expecting a significant amount of interest.

“I think there aren’t a couple of high-net-worth individuals, Australians that will have an interest in it, but certainly the strength will come from those overseas investors,” he said.

The vineyard includes a small cellar door and grows pinot noir, chardonnay, merlot and sauvignon blanc grapes.

There is a 100ML on farm dam as well as an additional 456ML of irrigation water.

Mr Fisher said it is difficult to estimate exactly how much a property like this would sell for.

“It really depends on what value people see in the unplanted land,” he said.

“Scope and scale in any property is hard to get and from a vineyard point of view it has got that in spades let alone the location and all that sort of stuff so it’s pretty difficult to put a number on it.” 

Mr Fisher said the strength of the Tasmanian wine industry was also a factor.

“The bigger companies are looking for scale in Tasmania to reduce their exposure to that climate risk,” he said.

The property is being offered for sale through expressions of interest, which will close on Aug 30.

Photo by Anna Kaminova