From Jack Riddell, a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today
Another Te Awanga winery is up for sale – with two of the area’s three vineyards now on the market – as Elephant Hill’s owner says it’s time to move on.
All of Elephant Hill Holdings Limited Group is on the market, which includes the owner’s lodge overlooking Cape Kidnappers, vineyards in Te Awanga and Gimblett Gravels, the winery, the cellar door, the restaurant, all physical assets and stock, the brand and an established distribution network both nationally and abroad.
But what chief executive Andreas Weiss says is the most important aspect of the sale is the team. “We are a small, high-performance team. I think we have the best people in their respective places.
You can’t find anyone better in Hawke’s Bay, and I’m very proud of that.”
Elephant Hill was founded by businessman Roger Weiss and his wife Reyden in 2001 after they “fell in love with New Zealand and a piece of land on the beautiful coast of Te Awanga”, which was at the time an abandoned venison farm. The winery was then opened in 2008.
“I think we were quite successful in building a brand with a very high reputation,” Andreas said.
“Everybody knows Elephant Hill because of the passion and of the investments that we did here.”
Roger died suddenly in 2016. Andreas, his son, had taken up the role of chief executive at the company a year earlier.
According to Andreas, the company is on the market because it is time for the family to move on.
“[My parents] created the dream; they created the vision of Elephant Hill. Since my father died, my mother, she comes over here more to cry than anything else because they built it together.”
Andreas said he hopes to find someone who shares the same vision and passion for wine and the land as his parents did. “It is, I think, breathtaking and mind-blowing sometimes. I mean, I am just looking out from my office looking at the Bay, and it’s just a beauty.”
Since then, the winery has closed and reopened its restaurant, and hosted marathons, mass dog walks, and countless wedding receptions and long lunches.
Elephant Hill is on the market at the same time as Te Awanga Estate’s coastal vineyard and cellar door/restaurant. Executive officer at Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers, Brent Limm, said the sales multiple of vineyards in the area is more of a coincidence than anything else.
“The Te Awanga area is an important subregion of Hawke’s Bay producing a wide range of high-quality wines with a distinctive sense of place.”
Elephant Hill and Te Awanga Estate’s neighbour Tim Turvey from Clearview Wines agrees, saying the subregion is still the most enviable area in Hawke’s Bay in which to grow wine, “especially chardonnay”, and the vineyards have the accolades to prove it.
At this year’s New Zealand International Wine Challenge, Clearview won a double gold for its Reserve Chardonnay 2021, while Te Awanga Estate’s won the trophy at London’s International Wine Competition for Best Red Wine of Show in 2015, and Elephant Hill’s 2019 Salome was awarded the highest score by respected UK-based Master of Wine Rebecca Gibb in her 2022 New
Zealand white wine report.
