The gate at Te Awanga Estate. Photo / Paul Taylor
A Hawke’s Bay winery has called in the liquidators while a local wine festival is making 2026 its last.
But wine lovers could be in for a deal with 20,000 cases and 400,000 litres of wine set to go under the hammer.
Subscribers to Te Awanga Estate’s wine subscriber service Drinkers and Keepers Wine Club received an email on Monday morning that read “this is the email we never dreamt we’d have to write”.
The email announced that Te Awanga Estate and winemaking business the Hawke’s Bay Wine Co had entered into voluntary liquidation.
The email sent to subscribers said wine shipments would no longer be sent out, and they would not be charged any further payments by the service.
Subscriptions had not yet been cancelled because the company was planning an “end of empire sale” initiated by the liquidators and wanted to let their customer base know when it was on.
Once the sale date was confirmed and information was available online, all subscriptions would be cancelled; however, subscriptions could be cancelled any time by contacting the company.
The email said the company was gutted and would miss customers’ support and enthusiasm for their wines.
A Te Awanga Estate spokesperson said they were not in a position to make a comment to Hawke’s Bay Today.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Auckland (PwC) is listed as the liquidators on the New Zealand Companies Office register.
Partner and leader at PwC’s Wellington business restructuring services team Richard Nacey said two sister businesses were being liquidated with Te Awanga Estate and Hawke’s Bay Wine Co.
Those are Hawke’s Bay Wine Investments and vineyard-to-container service Portside Wines.
Nacey said Te Awanga Estate owed $600,000 to unsecured creditors, Hawke’s Bay Wine Co owed $3 million to unsecured creditors, Hawke’s Bay Wine Investments owed $600,000 to unsecured creditors and Portside Wines owed $2m.
In addition, there was a bank debt of about $4m owed by the companies collectively as a group with a cross-guarantee in place.
To help lower the debt, Nacey said the liquidators would look to dispose of about 20,000 cases of wine and 400,000 litres of bulk wine owned by the four entities within the group.
A portion of that wine would be sold through Te Awanga Estate’s “end of empire” sale, but Nacey said his team would also need to use other channels.
“We will try and sell those cases in bulk to third parties,” he said.
Te Awanga Estate’s vineyard and restaurant in the seaside rural settlement have been on the market since October 2024 and on Wednesday was still listed for sale.
Elephant Hill, a vineyard down the road from Te Awanga Estate, was also put on the market in November 2024; however, the listing can no longer be found on the Bayleys’ website.
As a result of the changes to the wineries, Te Awanga Wine Festival has announced this year’s event will be its last.
The festival began as a way to showcase the best the local wineries had to offer, when the area had three wineries.
But uncertainty over the future direction and ownership of two of the three wineries meant the organisers were unable to confidently commit to hosting the event beyond 2026.
Organisers said the difficult decision came at a time when the festival was stronger than ever and they were taking it as a chance to “create something with the same values yet more scope for creativity”.
Although the festival was ending, organisers said plans were under way for a replacement.
The final Te Awanga Wine Festival is on Saturday, February 14.
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.