A new contract bottling company has sprung up in Marlborough to service the needs of the growing wine industry.
The Bottling Company was set up by directors Matt Elrick and Stefan Newman in May, after the pair noticed a gap in the bottling market.
WineWorks, which bottles 40 per cent of New Zealand wine, has a substantial operation in the region, but Elrick said there was definitely room for a competitor.
Total plantings in Marlborough were predicted to increase to almost 30,000 hectares by 2020, and this growth, combined with the effects of the earthquake, meant demand for bottling was on the rise.
"There's interest from people that are looking for an alternative to WineWorks, who we want to look after, and there's also the over-flow that's coming from earthquake-stricken tanks," Elrick said.
"There's enough work out there without the earthquake, but the timing is impeccable for a new bottling company to turn up."
About 20 per cent of total storage space was damaged in the earthquake, leading wine companies to try and empty their tanks before harvest, next March, to free up capacity.
The Bottling Company, based at Riverlands Industrial Estate, south of Blenheim, was scheduled to start operations in the last week of January, with trial runs before then.
Elrick and Newman had spent the past seven months sourcing new bottling equipment, including a filler and stacking robots, from overseas, as well as leasing space in the industrial estate with TNL International.
This arrangement minimised transportation of the wine, as The Bottling Company was in the same warehouse as TNL who could take care of the storage and distribution requirements of their customers.
"Having TNL as an option for storage and distribution gives us and prospective clients a lot of confidence that their wine will be treated amazingly from the time we pick it up to when customers get it as a finished product," Elrick said.
When it opened, the bottling line would be able to process about 6000 bottles per hour, or 1.2 million cases of wine per year, which Elrick described as a small to medium venture.
"Our intention is to put one line in and get all of our systems going really well to look after our clients, we'll also be able to provide a bit of flexibility to sort out other people if they need work done," he said.
Newman and Elrick intended to grow the business and potentially put in more bottling lines as demand grew, while maintaining an emphasis on quality control, which Elrick said was of paramount importance.
"We have to ensure that what's in the tanks is exactly what ends up going into the bottles," he said.
"With winemaking, every step along the way, from pruning to canopy management, has an impact on the wine and it all culminates in bottling, so you certainly don't want to have any problems at the bottling stage."
- The Marlborough Express