Mills Reef winery scouts Tauranga for new front-of-house

Mills Reef director and chief winemaker Tim Preston is busy securing the company's future in Tauranga.

Mills Reef is evaluating potential sites in Tauranga needed to shift the "front-of-house" side of the business by 2020.

"We are still trying to finalise a preferred site," chief winemaker and director Tim Preston said.

The timeline for the shift was being driven by the development of the retirement village on Mills Reef's Moffat Rd property, with the current function centre, restaurant and winery planned to become the village amenity block.

He said the sites for a new function centre, tasting room and micro-winery were very limited because they needed to be close to town. The company was having discussions with the city council.

Ideally, they wanted a property with a bit of room and nice outlook - not somewhere right in the centre of the city, Mr Preston said.

"The council has been great in acknowledging what we are trying to do. We are moving in the right direction."

However, details of the discussions and the potential sites were commercially sensitive.

Unlike the function centre that needed to be close to services, Mr Preston said Mills Reef had a lot more options to shift its winemaking operation to a site in the Western Bay District Council area.

They were dealing with a million litres a year and the winery location did not matter as much as the prettier side of the business, he said.

Mr Preston said Mills Reef was looking to keep processing in the Western Bay rather than shift operations to where the grapes were grown elsewhere in New Zealand.

"We are actively looking for a site in the Western Bay."

Mills Reef general manager Nick Aleksich said the company had been looking at its options for the last few months. All sites had their pluses and minuses and he could not pin down when the shift would take place because it involved a number of processes.

Meanwhile, 20 villas in the Moffat Rd retirement village had been built and another 20 were under construction, ready to be occupied by February next year. They were being sold as licences to occupy.

Mills Reef's resource consent allowed for the development of 198 two and three-bedroom villas to be built in stages in free-standing and duplex configurations.

Until the winery and function centre were converted to the amenity block, village residents were using the former homestead on the adjoining 3.1ha property as the community's clubrooms.

"One of the most satisfying aspects was the community being created in such a short space of time. The community spirit is pretty amazing," Mr Preston said.