Construction Of New State Of The Art Winery Begins For Oyster Bay Wines

Construction of a new state of the art winery has commenced in the Marlborough region for Oyster Bay Wines.

The first stage of construction is expected to take 18 months and the winery will be operational for the 2006 vintage. On completion the winery will represent a NZD $70 million investment and will be one of New Zealand’s largest and most technologically advanced, capable of producing more than 20 million litres of super-premium wine.

A considerable amount of research has gone into the project which has employed technology from the leading wine regions of the world, including California and South Australia. The best minds from New Zealand and around the world have been assembled to ensure a world-class outcome. Everything about the winery is designed to handle the grapes in a very gentle way to carry to the bottle the quality of Marlborough’s wonderful grapes.

The winery will support 2000 hectares of established vineyards in the Marlborough region and will be set amidst 400 hectares of vineyards, comprising sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and pinot noir. The winery will be located on Oyster Bay’s State Highway 63 vineyard in the Wairau Valley. On completion the winery will employ more than 50 winemaking and administration staff.

The initial stage of construction will consist of a roading infrastructure and a 10,000 square metre stainless steel tank cellar. The architecture is contemporary and designed to complement the surrounding landscape.

The first scheduled on-site activity commenced on Tuesday 7 December 2004.
Transfield Worley Ltd is the project manager and proces design engineer with overall responsibility for the delivery of this project.

Mainzeal Property & Construction Ltd is the civil and construction contractor for the winery building and associated site infrastructure.

NDA Engineering Ltd is manufacturing the stainless steel cellar tanks in their work shops in Hawera and Hamilton and are scheduled to have the first of the completed tanks delivered to Marlborough in December 2004, with a steady stream of tanks making the trip south over the next six months.