Endeavour Group is selling vineyards and wineries and consolidating production. It probably makes sense from a corporate viewpoint – but there is a human toll.
The Australian headline screamed, “Endeavour gets rid of under-performing wineries.”
Jayne Hrdlicka, whose fault is that?
Your firm grew the grapes for Chapel Hill, you made the wine, you bottled it and controlled the distribution, you set the price, you put it in the best spot in 290 Dan Murphy’s stores and you still couldn’t make it work.
Doesn’t bode well for the downtrodden out there who don’t have the luxury of takings from 12,300 poker machines.
Chapel Hill production will move from a McLaren Vale farm with a 150-year-old chapel, to dashing Dorrien Estate in the Barossa.
I don’t think any wine retailer big enough to have a budget for shopping trolleys should be allowed to own a winery – nor stack its shelves with its own products in such large quantities.
It heaps pain on families; doesn’t pass the pub test.
Aussies and a fair go? Struth, we’re gonna need a new slogan.
Australia can never claim to be truly serious about mental health until we make it easier for family business to feed the kids.
Every day, another cafe or restaurant closes.
Family business is facing an existential crisis, and that was before Albanese’s robbery of family trusts.
At this rate, cafes – so vital for human connection – will only be viable if they’re run by volunteers like Meals on Wheels.
Penfolds-centric TWE could buy Oakridge.
Then again this elite brand could catch the eye of an entrepreneur in a red Mustang with a musical air horn.
They have to spend it somewhere.
Someone will buy Josef Chromy in Tassie – a ready-made foothold into a fashionable region for someone currently in an unfashionable one.
The legendary Michael Fragos has held up his end of the bargain under Endeavour.
He has looked after Chapel Hill, taken it to another level, kept it connected to the district and given it a face.
When it comes to women in wine, Chapel Hill just about wrote the book.
Winemaker Pam Dunsford inspired so many other women to join the industry.
She is one of only 21 recipients of the Maurice O’Shea.
Yet these precious human stories somehow end up in a factory far from home.
If the care factor falters, Chapel Hill risks becoming another hollow log drifting down the river of routine.
Smile, Redman got Rouge Homme back. We live in hope.
• A version of this article first appeared in our weekly newsletter The Week That Was.
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