The Accolade Wines-owned Petaluma winery at Woodside in the Adelaide Hills is closing and will be put on the market.
Production will be shifted to the company’s Tintara winery in McLaren Vale.
The Petaluma facility, which only opened five years ago, has produced the Petaluma and Croser brands.
The company’s Krondorf winery in the Barossa Valley will also shut with production shifted to the Tintara and St Hallett wineries.
“We recently conducted a thorough assessment of our wine footprint to understand the capacity to support the growth of our wine brands and to ensure that each site can run sustainably,” Accolade Wines chief executive Robert Foye says.
“In response to the increasing global demand for Petaluma and Croser, these brands have reached capacity at Woodside Estate and outgrown the site.
“Therefore, we have made the decision to sell this facility and transfer all winemaking of the Petaluma and Croser portfolio to the spiritual home of Accolade Wines and our state-of-the-art facility at Tintara.
“With a long history of Adelaide Hills winemaking, Tintara has a phenomenal barrel cellar, amazing winemakers and a sizeable site that can accommodate all fruit from the Petaluma and Croser vineyards and family of grower vineyards.
“It will enable us to produce even more quality Petaluma wine that people have come to know and love.”
Accolade is investigating new locations for the Petaluma cellar door.
“In the meantime, we will keep trading in the current location until the sale is completed,” Mr Foye says.
“We will retain our Adelaide Hills vineyards in Summertown and Mount Barker.”
Mr Foye says they do not have enough white winegrapes that require processing in the Barossa to maximise the capability and size of the Krondorf winery.
“Therefore, we are selling this facility so that a potential buyer can more efficiently leverage the strong white wine making capabilities of this winery,” he says.
“Our Grant Burge white winegrapes will be processed at our Tintara and St Hallett wineries in vintage 2021 onwards.
“While we have made the decision to sell these sites, Petaluma, Croser and Grant Burge remain an important part of brand portfolio and we have decided to produce them elsewhere to support their ongoing and planned growth.
“All employees who are potentially impacted by these changes have been informed and we will continue to support them throughout this transition.
“We hope that the majority of our employees can be retained by us at one of our Accolade Wines sites or by the new owners.
“I would like to reiterate our commitment to South Australia and our footprint across five wineries, six cellar doors, two state of the art facilities and 584 employees. We will continue to invest in the region and have plans in place regarding the opportunities we see in South Australia in the future.”
The Petaluma facility opened by then-owner Lion in 2015 and cost $10 million.
Accolade Wines is owned by the American private equity company The Carlyle Group.
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