Kevin Sobels Wines Property Snapped Up for $7 Million by Sydney-Based Developer

SYDNEY-BASED property developer Romeciti has paid $7.3 million to acquire the 22-hectare Kevin Sobels Wines property on the corner of Halls and Broke roads, Pokolbin.

LIFESTYLE: The Kevin Sobels Wines property at Pokolbin will be transformed into a lifestyle destination.

The site, at the heart of the lower Hunter Valley tourist area, contains a 13-hectare vineyard and the Sobels winery, bottling line, cellars, tasting rooms, cellar door and manager’s residence.

As part of the deal negotiated by Jurd’s Real Estate, Cessnock, the Kevin Sobel wine operation, run by Hunter Living Legend of Wine Kevin Sobels, his wife Margaret and son Jason will continue as previously.

Romeciti’s communications officer, Ash Plaskett, said on Monday that the Sobels purchase was part of the company’s $20 million investment this year in lifestyle destinations, including the early 2018 acquisitions of Camden Nursery and North Rocks Greenery.

The Kevin Sobels Wines property at Pokolbin

It planned to invest a further $7.7 million into a lifestyle destination for Romeciti customers and the general public on the Sobels site.  Individual villas planned for the property would be designed around a unique theme.  The long-term plan was to “create a holistic living experience, through a combination of elegant accommodation, green spaces, sustainability and community activities”.

Romeciti would begin a development application process later this year.  Upgrades and refurbishment works were expected to begin in early 2019, with accommodation facilities set to open to Romeciti customers in late 2019, Mr Plaskett said.

An aerial view of the property

Alan Jurd, of Jurds Real Estate, said that the sale was “a great result for all parties and for Pokolbin, as the wine business will continue to operate as the new owners enhance the property with their future plans”.

Kevin Sobels, 75, is a fifth-generation member of a wine dynasty founded in South Australia by German immigrant winemaker Carl August Sobels.

Kevin held major winemaking posts in the Barossa Valley before he and his wife Margaret came to the Upper Hunter Valley as winemaker at the then new Denman Estate venture.

In 1974 the couple established the Queldinberg winery on the New England Highway at Muswellbrook and in 1986 moved the operation to the corner of Broke and Halls roads Pokolbin.

SOURCE: Hunter Valley News
POSTED: July 31, 2018
AUTHOR: John Lewis

@Luxury Estates – experts on visionary marketing of Australia’s most luxurious real estate for sale