Wine company in receivership

Another Marlborough wine company is in receivership and one unsecured creditor has predicted it will be only a month before his company suffers the same fate. Otuwhero Estate Wines, based in the Awatere Valley, was put into the management of Deloitte partner Grant Jarrold, of Christchurch, on Monday.

Mr Jarrold said he was still assessing options for the company. Otuwhero operations director Michael Davison, of Clifford Bay near Blenheim, would not comment. Wade Thompson, of WJ Contracting, said Otuwhero owed him $100,000 for work on the vineyard.

His company has managed the 200-hectare Otuwhero vineyard under contract for six years, he said. That included paying staff wages and contracting pruners for the 170ha planted in sauvignon blanc. Mr Thompson said he cancelled the management contract after payments for the pruning work turned to a trickle and then stopped completely about two months ago.

He pulled out the pruners half-way through work on the vineyard until the payments were made, but no money had been forthcoming. He also had not been paid for several months, he said. He could not pay Thornhill Horticultural Contracting, which he had hired to do the pruning, and it was likely his own company, WJ Contracting, would end up going out of business, he said.

Thornhill South Island manager Ian Hunter said he was upset the Otuwhero directors would walk away leaving them having to work to recoup debts. But that was the way of business when companies failed, he said.

Mr Thompson and Thornhill Contracting had kept a good relationship throughout, he said.

Mr Thompson said Otuwhero's operations director, Mr Davison, was managing the vineyard under the receivers, who were tendering for a new contractor to finish the pruning.

"What makes me so angry now, one of the directors has gone and employed other staff to get the pruning finished, yet they are not paying for the last lot of pruning that was done," Mr Thompson said.

He did not hold much hope for getting any money from the receivership, he said.

"They've got us over a barrel.

"We're unsecured creditors. We're the last ones to get anything out of it."

Gravitas, Awatere Vineyard Estates and Cape Campbell Wines have this year all been put under management with unsecured debts totalling almost $1.9 million.