Treasury Wine Estates has sold the historic Ryecroft winery and adjoining vineyard in McLaren Flat to Seppeltsfield Wines.
While the sale was only finalised last Friday, Seppeltsfield isn't wasting any time putting the property to use. It will being crushing grapes there this week for the 2017 vintage.
The site, which was once the production hub for Rosemount, will be used as an ancillary crush, fermentation and storage facility for Seppeltsfield. The addition of 100 acres of vineyard will bring Seppeltsfield’s collective ownership of South Australian vineyard area to 5700 acres.
“The Ryecroft acquisition super-charges our premium wine crush and fermentation capacity,” said Warren Randall, Seppeltsfield proprietor and executive chairman.
“Attached to the original 1888 A-grade winery is 21,000,000L of storage capacity, so we see this as a very supportive addition to Seppeltsfield’s winemaking asset base."
Seppeltsfield said it was also attracted to the rich history of Ryecroft, which was established in 1888 by Frederick Wilkinson.
"Original wax-lined concrete fermenters are still in place and can be used for ultra-premium winemaking,” Randall said.
TWE put Ryecroft on the market in November 2014, saying it had been running at half capacity for several years and this was unsustainable. Operations were shifted to other wineries, with the 33 employees either being redeployed or made redundant.
Earlier this week, TWE also announced it was selling two New Zealand vineyards - Hawke’s Bay’s Dartmoor Vineyard and Matheson Vineyard.
Share the content
