Champagne Indage buys Australian winery

Champagne Indage Limited (CIL) has announced its second acquisition in Australia within a year with its porposed acquisition of Australian Vintage's Loxton winery in an all cash transaction for 60 million Australian dollars, or Rs 225 crore.

The company said in a release that the deal was expected to be completed in six months.

Australian Vintage was formerly known as McGuigan Simeon Wines and as Australia's third largest wine company, was listed on the Australian stock exchange. The acquisition of the winery would increase Champagne's annual capacity in Australia from 32 million litres (mn.l.), equivalent to 3.5 million cases, to 122mn.l. or 13.5 million cases.

The company said the Loxton winery, at Riverland in South Australia, was the fifth largest and one of the most modern in Australia with annual crushing capacity of over 80,000 tons to produce upto 90mn.l..

The release added that the winery was configured to handle smaller batches of more premium fruit, sourced predominantly from the Riverland vineyards, enabling a greater degree of flexibility with cropping level and therefore wine styles.

Champagne said it expected the winery to offer products at different price points within Australia as well as other major markets of Australian wine such as UK, Europe, US and India.

Ranjit S Chougule, managing director of Champagne Indage, said the purchase of Loxton should be seen as part of a larger strategy of going global.

The company had acquired Australia's Thachi wines 12 months back.

Thachi was expected to generate 10 million Australian dollars in revenue and 100,000 Australian dollars in profit in the first year of operations.

Thachi brands included Broken Earth, Red Skies and South Bay, all being sold globally as well as in India.

Champagne had vineyards of over 2500 hectares and facilities in Narayangaon, Nasik and Himachal Pradesh with 20 varieties under commercial plantation and over 137 varietals under nursery cultivation.

It had 10 offices and more than 600 employees globally.

Its products had won 49 international awards and included 36 brands of red, white and sparkling Indian wines from the lowest to highest price points in the Indian market.