Charlie Seppelt, head of bulk operations at the Randall Wine Group, is leaving the company to focus full-time on his own brand, Paralian Wines, which he owns with his wife, Skye Salter.
“It’s time for Skye and I to have a crack at our own thing,” Charlie says.
“We’ve got it to a point where we can.
“Paralian has been a bit of a side project for both of us.
“Skye left Willunga 100 a few years ago to go full time on it.
“Now it’s got to the point where, with the vineyard and sales, we owe it to ourselves to have a go.”
Established in 2018, Paralian owns the 46-acre dry-grown Springs Hill Vineyard in Blewitt Springs.
Charlie and Skye bought the vineyard from Gary Whaite and Leigh Burrows two years ago.
The vineyard was established in 1975 by the Whaite family who planted of 2.2 hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon and 0.8 hectares of Shiraz.
Paralian currently produces about 2,000 cases of wine with Charlie and Skye looking to increase production.
“We’re not overly ambitious, to be fair,” says Charlie.
“If we could get it to 3,000 cases, that would be sustainable. It would be a good life.
“We don’t have any ambitions to grow it to 10,000 cases and sell wine everywhere.
“We just want to make incredibly good wine in limited quantities and that should cover us for what we need to do.
“We will still need to sell fruit and the idea is to build a profile around Springs Hill Vineyard too.
“We want to create higher demand for the fruit and have it as one of those places that people making single vineyard wines, want to buy fruit from.”
Charlie is the fifth generation of the founding family of Seppeltsfield, established in 1851.
He joined the Randall Wine Group in late 2017, running Ryecroft before moving to Tinlins in McLaren where he took on the group role of head of bulk operations in 2021.
Charlie says it will be steady as she goes for Paralian, with the vineyard the priority along with spending more time in the trade.
“I haven’t made a sales call in Adelaide in like three years,” he says.
“I’m looking forward to getting out and about.”
Charlie says Seppeltsfield owner Warren Randall has been supportive of his move.
“Warren gets the desire as it’s what he did with Tinlins all those years ago,” says Charlie.
“Warren’s ambition and willingness to ask the question are part of the drive for this decision, too.”
The flexibility and freedom are also major factors in his move.
There is some trepidation.
“I won’t lie, I’ve been lying awake at 2am most nights staring at the ceiling and going ‘what the hell am I doing?'”
“But it’s exciting.
“Together with Skye, we just want to give this 100 percent of our time.
“Because what are we doing otherwise?
“We’ve built it and put so much effort into it to get it this far.
“It’s time to give it a nudge and hopefully make it a success.
“I’m looking forward to a bit more freedom, but, primarily, just the joy of seeing your hard work paying off.”
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