Advertisement

Treasury to boost Wolf Blass, sell Ryecroft

Mar 31, 2015
Treasury Wine Estates CEO Michael Clarke

Treasury Wine Estates CEO Michael Clarke

Treasury Wine Estates has announced a plan to boost packaging and warehousing at a key Barossa facility, but has confirmed the historic Ryecroft Winery in McLaren Vale will be sold.

The wine giant announced the end of production at Ryecroft last November with the loss of 33 jobs.

TWE told the stock exchange this morning that the winemaking facility would be sold, including the surrounding vineyard.

In a statement, the company said the packaging and warehousing of wines previously processed at Karadoc near Mildura would be shifted to the “state-of-the-art” Wolf Blass facility in Nuriootpa.

“As a result, the utilisation of the Wolf Blass packaging and warehousing facility will be significantly advanced,” TWE said in the statement.

A TWE spokesperson told InDaily the company was not yet able to put a number on any potential job gains in Nuriootpa.

In other moves affecting its South Australian operations, commercial wine processed at TWE’s Wynn’s Coonawarra facilities will be transferred to Karadoc. The processing of so-called “masstige” wines at Wynn’s will be transferred to Wolf Blass, to allow the Coonawarra winery to focus on increased luxury wine processing and warehousing.

The wines to be shifted from Wynn’s to Nuriootpa include some Wolf Blass, Lindemans and Penfolds lines.

The Ryecroft winery, which had made Rosemount-branded wines, will be sold, along with the Victorian wineries T’Gallant and Baileys.

TWE promised last November that Rosemount wines would continue to be made from McLaren Vale grapes.

TWE is making similar changes to its supply chain in its US operations, with the initiatives expected to be completed by the end of the 2016 fiscal year.

TWE chief executive officer Michael Clarke said the changes were “a tangible example of how TWE is executing its separate focus on its luxury and masstige versus commercial portfolios globally, and are crucial steps designed to better optimise our supply chain network and extract significant cost savings over time”.

When the Ryecroft closure was announced, InDaily wine writer Philip White pointed out that TWE had been shrinking the Ryecroft operation for same time, instead favouring sending fruit to local contract processors “or to its huge installations at the Wolf Blass Bilyara and Penfolds wineries at Nuriootpa in the Barossa”.

Read his November 2014 take on the move here.

 

Local News Matters
Advertisement
Copyright © 2024 InDaily.
All rights reserved.