India's Champagne Indage to buy Australian winery for $60 million

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The latest deal follows sale of Australian Vintage's Griffith winery to the Yellowtail winemaker Cassella Wines for $10 million in November.

In spite of having estimated debts of $150 million, Hudson said Australian Vintage was "in pretty good shape at the moment" and was not looking to divest any more assets.

"We've had no issue servicing it at all," Hudson said, playing down concerns of his company's debt levels.

Formerly known as McGuigan Simeon Wines, Australian Vintage Ltd is one of Australia's largest wine makers, owning significant winery and vineyard assets geographically spread across some of the most important viticultural regions of Australia and accounting for 12 percent of Australia's total production.

The company owns the McGuigan, Tempus Two, Nepenthe, Passion Pop and Yaldara brands.

CIL is India's leading wine producing company with a 75 percent market share in the wine segment. CIL has been instrumental, to a large extent, in developing India's wine industry. It produces white, red, sparkling and rosy wines of many varieties. CIL is the only champagne manufacturing company in Asia and the only wine exporting company of India. Apart from domestic market, the company exports wine to US, Japan, UK, Switzerland, Germany and other European countries. It has a portfolio of 64 brands, which are strategically priced to target different income groups.

Consumption of wine in India is low compared to rest of the world. However, India's wine market is one of the fastest growing in the world, with annual growth of 60 percent over the past three years.

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