The Auswine Forum

...since Treasury seem to be run largely by third-rate marketeers these days who think they should spend scarce marketing dollars inventing new brands out of thin air instead of utilising the vineyards and resources (& faint remaining residual goodwill!) of the once glorious brands they already own...
Only the most hopeless romantics would ever have owned shares in the company since it changed from Adelaide Steamship into Southcorp; unless you managed to make some kind of insider-trading killing on the share-trading roundabouts...

(For those on a desert island, this comment from a pinot-gris-fuelled - don't ask - rumination on the sale of Seppelt to Stonier.)

Not such a crazy idea Graeme.
I wonder what Stonier actually stumped up for Seppelts?
Cheers Craig

I'm in. Any back vintage rewards for shareholders?

Really ballsy move by Aaron Drummond & co taking on Seppelt. Restarting the winery & putting money into revitalising the old vineyards.

Drummond flagged the priorities: the old vineyards, St Peters Shiraz, Show Sparkling Shiraz, and Drumborg's riesling, pinot noir, chardonnay and sparkling. "As we have done at Stonier, our starting point will be putting the love back into these old vineyards, great winemaking and fine wine distribution." - Campbell Mattinson website.

The Stonier owners have good form with this. Stonier is much improved since the sale by the previous big corporate owner.

Getting the winemaking where it belongs back in the Seppelt winery, which has loads of potential for sparkling as well as the table wines.

Also teaming up Dan Buckle (ex Domaine Chandon & Mount Langi Ghiran) with Julian Grounds (ex Craggy Range & current winemaker at Stonier).

Interesting to see if some of the other unloved so-called commercial brands go the same way.

Treasury has been running them into the ground for years.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if someone who actually knows how to run a winery with a bit of passion & drive owned them?

For a bit of fun I asked AI how much some of these brands are worth now.

Lindemans estimated at US$270 million. But according to AFR, when Treasury tried to sell off Lindemans and the other commercial brands not long ago they would likely only get A$100 million.

Annie’s Lane no longer has the historic Quelltaler winery or 900 acres of vineyards in Clare. Just a brand name.

The Mildara winery at Merbein was sold to McGuigan Simeon in 2006. Now just a brand name that’s almost disappeared off the shelves.

Similarly Seaview (with a long history) is just a brand name for cheap fizz.

Devil’s Lair was originally purchased for A$7 million in 1996. Makes premium Margaret River wine. How can they stuff up that?

The Wolf Blass brand name has been pretty much wrecked by Treasury. But the Bilyara winery must be worth a bit. Still making a lot of the Treasury brand wines currently incl Seppelt and Wynns I think.

Remember the hugely popular Dr Lindemans wine ad in the 1970s?

Funnily enough I found an old The Shout article about wine brands.

Brand Finance had done a report in 2022 on the world’s best wine brands.

Lindemans was the world’s fastest growing wine brand in the Top 50 ranking coming in at no.6. Beating Wolf Blass at no.13 & Penfolds at no.15!

Brand Finance said brand value is “the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market.”

But apparently Treasury sees no value in Lindemans or Wolf Blass and booked a write-down on them.

Do they not still own Rosemount as well? I mean, how could you destroy the brand value in that...? I guess you practice on Lindemans, Seaview, Wolf Blass, (Seppelt), Tollana, Leo Buring...
It seems like only only brand to survive NOT being the "golden boy Penfolds" is Wynns...

GraemeG wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 8:15 pm Do they not still own Rosemount as well? I mean, how could you destroy the brand value in that...? I guess you practice on Lindemans, Seaview, Wolf Blass, (Seppelt), Tollana, Leo Buring...
It seems like only only brand to survive NOT being the "golden boy Penfolds" is Wynns...

I cut my wine teeth on those brands, haven't bought Penfolds in years and rarely buy Wynns. Don't know who is buying with China pivoting elsewhere. The rest of the industry has caught up to TWE and offer so much more value.

Dr Lindemans used to make us smile. Sadly no longer.

And for those interested, the ads are on YouTube for a trip down memory lane, as is the one with LRB (who was enormously popular globally at the time). Kinda sad…..

Chuck wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2026 12:39 pm

GraemeG wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 8:15 pm Do they not still own Rosemount as well? I mean, how could you destroy the brand value in that...? I guess you practice on Lindemans, Seaview, Wolf Blass, (Seppelt), Tollana, Leo Buring...
It seems like only only brand to survive NOT being the "golden boy Penfolds" is Wynns...

I cut my wine teeth on those brands, haven't bought Penfolds in years and rarely buy Wynns. Don't know who is buying with China pivoting elsewhere. The rest of the industry has caught up to TWE and offer so much more value.

Yes warehouses full of Wynns, premiums going back to 2013 vintage, which simply aren't selling. I have paid $65-90 for the last four vintages of JR, excluding the very poor 2020. With an RRP of $175, etailers must be getting some of these vintages for $50 direct from TWE, before I get to them and there in lies the problem...may the race to the bottom long continue
Cheers Craig

Not only trashing the brand name, but the dismantling of these wine companies by the bean counters.
To continue with the Lindemans example.
In 2016 Treasury closed the Ben Ean winery and cellar door in Hunter Valley.
Sold it to the McGuigan and Peterson families, who restarted the winery and cellar door offering multiple local labels.
In 2025 they sold it to HVL Hotels, who want to develop it into a luxury resort.
In 2023 Treasury closed the Lindemans Karadoc winery citing falling sales and wanting to focus on premium wines.
Obviously Hunter Valley or Riverland wine wasn’t a premium for them.
The winemaking was shifted to the Treasury (Wolf Blass) winery in the Barossa where they make an ocean of commercial wine.
Now the old Karadoc winery is a logistics hub for a wool broker.
Treasury still owns the vineyards in the Coonawarra for the Trio, which are premium, trophy winning wines however.
The Trio have been made by Brett Sharpe over the years based in his hidey hole in the Coonawarra I think.
Really no idea how long the Lindemans Trio will continue as a standalone in Treasury. Maybe no-one has told the bean counters about it.
Lindemans also owned the Leo Buring brand - est in 1931 by Leo Buring and sold to Lindemans in 1974.
Spun into Southcorp when Lindemans was part of that corporate and now a Treasury wine brand.
Totally focusing on Riesling over the last 25 years, which makes it an outlier for that reason.
Currently the Leo Buring winemaker is Marie Clay who is based at the Treasury winery in the Barossa.
A quality “boutique” label quietly hiding (except for the trophy wins) in the Treasury conglomerate - so maybe it can be done?
Not so for Rouge Homme.
Rouge Homme was est by the Redmans in 1952. Bill Redman was already making Coonawarra reds for everyone anyway.
Lindemans bought it in 1965. Rolled into Southcorp with Lindemans and died a slow death by cuts after that.
The winery and vineyard sold to the Di Giorgio family in 2002 and this year the Redmans bought back the old brand name to add to their Redman wines just down the road.
After all that Lindemans never really stood a chance.
Really can’t believe how Treasury has given up on the Hunter with Lindemans especially. They gutted it and now it’s just a shell of what it once was.
But it has been repeated over again with Rosemount Estate - once one of the big export hopes for Southcorp and Treasury after them.
Founded by Robert Oatley in 1969 and one of the biggest selling Australian brands in the USA by 2000.
What follows is a lesson in how to piss away a billion dollars.
The A$1.5 billion merger with Southcorp in 2001 was generally regarded as a reverse takeover. Southcorp paid the cheque, but the Oatley family and Rosemount Estate winemaker Philip Shaw were running the shit show.
When the Foster’s brewery won control in 2005, the bean counters came in. The cost cutting and winery sales took on momentum. By the time the beer owners realised they had to get out of the wine business the rot had set in - failed export orders, an oversupply of bulk and commercial wine and changing trends they had missed.
The spin-off wine division became Treasury Wine Estates in 2011. Nothing has changed.
Rosemount Estate was based originally in the Upper Hunter. Really took off with the Chardonnay boom in the 80s & 90s. By the time it was a Southcorp brand, they had vineyards much further afield in Orange, Mudgee, the Coonawarra and McLaren Vale.
In 1991 they purchased Ryecroft in McLaren Vale and built a new winery - releasing wines like the GSM, Traditional & the Show Reserve Cab.
In the 90s everyone was drinking these wines as well as the Roxburgh Chardonnay, Balmoral Syrah, the Mountain Blue and Giant’s Creek Chardonnay. The 2001 Traditional was the JWT winner in 2002. They made pretty good wines back then.
The Diamond label wines filled the shelves here and overseas.
But it all went pear shaped in the 2000s after that.
Funny I think when the corporate marketing types decided to make the diamond label bottles actually diamond shaped - well that likely sounded the death knell for Rosemount Estate.
In 2009 Foster’s closed the Rosemount winery and cellar door at Denman.
In 2010 the Roxburgh property (the vineyard & land around it) was purchased by BHP to expand its coal mining in the Upper Hunter.
A few years later, Scarborough took a long-term lease on the vineyard to use for their Chardonnays.
In 2014 Treasury closed the Ryecroft winery and in 2016 the cellar door was closed. I think old vintages of Traditional and Balmoral Syrah were being flogged off at clearance prices by then.
Since then the Rosemount Estate wines have been made in the Treasury winery in the Barossa.
Not drunk or seen a Rosemount Estate wine for years.

Thanks Sean informative as always.
I once had a beer with Brett Sharpe and Andrew Hales (former winemaker for Jamieson's Run and made the excellent Rothwell plus a slew of other Coonawarra reds, O'Deas Alexander's, McShane and now with Pennies). They both lamented how a beer company completely fu*ked the brand, and decades of history counts for nought.
Liz Marwood made the 2021/22 Lindies Trio, but I believe left TWE. Not sure who made the 2024s and suspect 2025s will be made, as a very good vintage by all reports.
Also wonder what happened to Claire Dry at Seppelt, maybe moved somewhere else. Managed to pick up a sixer of 2026 Drumborg Riesling...all references to Seppelt have been removed from Treasury's website.
I hope that Lindemans finds a home but in the meantime happy to pick over the carcass.
Cheers Craig

phillisc wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2026 3:20 pm Thanks Sean informative as always.
I once had a beer with Brett Sharpe and Andrew Hales (former winemaker for Jamieson's Run and made the excellent Rothwell plus a slew of other Coonawarra reds, O'Deas Alexander's, McShane and now with Pennies). They both lamented how a beer company completely fu*ked the brand, and decades of history counts for nought.
Liz Marwood made the 2021/22 Lindies Trio, but I believe left TWE. Not sure who made the 2024s and suspect 2025s will be made, as a very good vintage by all reports.
Also wonder what happened to Claire Dry at Seppelt, maybe moved somewhere else. Managed to pick up a sixer of 2026 Drumborg Riesling...all references to Seppelt have been removed from Treasury's website.
I hope that Lindemans finds a home but in the meantime happy to pick over the carcass.
Cheers Craig

Clare Dry is still with Treasury. She is now in charge of low and alcohol free wines at Treasury.

I suspect that 2022 survey was a specific 'moment in time', that point where a company increases the volume at the expense of quality, leveraging the brand hard before the brand damage is irrevocable.

I Love Shiraz wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2026 9:19 pm

phillisc wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2026 3:20 pm Thanks Sean informative as always.
I once had a beer with Brett Sharpe and Andrew Hales (former winemaker for Jamieson's Run and made the excellent Rothwell plus a slew of other Coonawarra reds, O'Deas Alexander's, McShane and now with Pennies). They both lamented how a beer company completely fu*ked the brand, and decades of history counts for nought.
Liz Marwood made the 2021/22 Lindies Trio, but I believe left TWE. Not sure who made the 2024s and suspect 2025s will be made, as a very good vintage by all reports.
Also wonder what happened to Clare Dry at Seppelt, maybe moved somewhere else. Managed to pick up a sixer of 2026 Drumborg Riesling...all references to Seppelt have been removed from Treasury's website.
I hope that Lindemans finds a home but in the meantime happy to pick over the carcass.
Cheers Craig

Clare Dry is still with Treasury. She is now in charge of low and alcohol free wines at Treasury.

What a demotion for someone of her skill set...nolo, equivalent in the wine world to vaping.
Guess someone has to challenge the market stranglehold that Hard Solo currently enjoys.
Hopefully she'll receive an offer similar to Dave Bicknell and Clare can continue to shine in the Riesling and Shiraz space.
Cheers Craig

Also remember having a chat with Brett Sharpe a few years ago. He got out because he was pi$$ed off at the demolition job that Treasury inflicted on the Trio wines, which we both lamented. Criminal really. Plus losing the talent. It will just be Pennies and Wynns before too long.

Update on the sale of a few more Treasury wine brands over the last few weeks.

The Tollana brand has been sold to Swordfish Distribution.

WBM says they are talking to SA winemakers about relaunching the old Tollana Bin TR16 & Bin TR222 names.

Various media also reporting the Oatley family has bought back the Rosemount brand as well as Ingoldby & Secret Stone (NZ).

They also bought Murray Street Vineyards in Barossa Valley - the cellar door, winery & vineyard.

The Oatley wine business is now operating as AG Oatley Wines run by Sandy Oatley and his daughter Nicky.

I think Larry Cherubino is still involved, who was winemaker for Robert Oatley Vineyards.

Yes what is happening now, should never have happened, or should have happened 10-20 years ago.
The one downside is that I have/had access to these brands at reasonable prices, (that's the nature of when bastardisation occurs), but for these brands to be competitive now, they will probably need to adjust price.
I rang Stoniers last week, they were rather short on detail on what was happening with the thousands of dozens of Seppelt they have acquired. Guess market forces will decide.
Cheers Craig

mjs wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2026 11:40 am Also remember having a chat with Brett Sharpe a few years ago. He got out because he was pi$$ed off at the demolition job that Treasury inflicted on the Trio wines, which we both lamented. Criminal really. Plus losing the talent. It will just be Pennies and Wynns before too long.

No doubt the fruit is feeding the Penfolds machine. I assume not Wynns; I picked up a booklet that Wynns gave out with the latest prestige releases which has magnificent indication maps of Coonawarra vineyards included. I assume every vineyard Wynns have gets a number and a spot on the map. 38 of them in fact, comprising a decent third of the terra Rossa soil strip. Certainly the dozen or so names we know from their single vineyard bottling are all there. Apparently there's an Alex 84 vineyard as well as Alex 88. Anyway, nowhere among all the listings are either St George or Limestone Ridge.

Ha! I see Sean has mentioned the Rosemount sale. I guess the Oatleys had to wait a whole lot longer to get it back than Packer did after he sold Nine to Alan Bond. But are the original vineyards extant? Didn't Roxburgh get bulldozed for housing or something?
Maybe Seaview will be next on the resurrection podium? We should run a sweep...

Spotted in the AFR today, CEO Sam Fisher indicating no fire sale of TWE brands. Could have fooled me.
Rosemount, Secret Stone and Seppelts combined realised just $50M. Yes I say that quickly, but a back of the envelope calculation puts Seppelts at $20-25M...this seems somewhat reasonable. Yes the purchase by Stonier is probably the cheap bit, ongoing costs, re-establishling market share will be the expensive part.
Just has me thinking what offer Taylor's gave TWE for Lindies and why it wasn't accepted.
Cheers Craig

phillisc wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2026 4:41 pm I rang Stoniers last week, they were rather short on detail on what was happening with the thousands of dozens of Seppelt they have acquired. Guess market forces will decide.
Cheers Craig

WBM has reported today that Samuel Smith & Son will be the distributor of Seppelt wines for the new owners.

Guessing Craig they weren’t going to say too much when you rang until the announcement.

Means the Seppelt wines should be widely available, incl in the chains.

Took a look at the portfolio of wineries on their books, which includes Brokenwood, Dalrymple, Heggies, Jansz, Jim Barry, Pewsey Vale, Sidewood, Vasse Felix, Wirra Wirra & Yalumba.

See all of these in the chains, often discounted too.

phillisc wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2026 9:17 pm Spotted in the AFR today, CEO Sam Fisher indicating no fire sale of TWE brands. Could have fooled me.
Rosemount, Secret Stone and Seppelts combined realised just $50M. Yes I say that quickly, but a back of the envelope calculation puts Seppelts at $20-25M...this seems somewhat reasonable. Yes the purchase by Stonier is probably the cheap bit, ongoing costs, re-establishling market share will be the expensive part.
Just has me thinking what offer Taylor's gave TWE for Lindies and why it wasn't accepted.
Cheers Craig

The Treasury Wine Estates AGM was on during the week.
Read the text of the Chairman & CEO speeches in the company announcement.
Noticed the item about the sale of Rosemount, Seppelt, et al for about $50 million.
They were described as the sale of “non-priority” brands and assets.
They paid $1.5 billion for Rosemount, but I guess we can all move on from that now.
Not had a profit for FY26 because of falling revenue, distribution issues in the US and a huge writedown on commercial brands.
Including the US brands they also paid billions of dollars for.
Treasury is also holding a lot of debt, which will limit what they do.
Likely just more of the same - selling off more brands, cutting jobs & marketing the hell out of a few “priority” brands to the consumer masses.
They only have a handful of winemaking facilities in Australia now.
Interesting to see how they make “luxury” wines in these tank farms. Also they have just spent a motza on upgrading one of them to produce NoLo & non-alcohol plonk.
One of the issues with a brand not having its own winery is reputational.
I always thought this was the case with Seppelt when they closed the winery & relocated the winemaking to the Barossa.
Got me wondering if some of those Chalambar Shiraz tasted just the same as Wolf Blass.
I wouldn’t have said that about Wynns in the past I guess.
Not had a 23 or 24 Wynns Black Label Cab until now.
The name changed with the 2023 vintage. There had been some subtle changes to the label with previous vintages. No idea why the Treasury team changed the name.
Also it isn’t made at Wynns anymore. The so-called “masstige” Treasury wines including the Black Label are made at the huge Wolf Blass winery.
Nobody really knows how much Black Label Cab they make these days.
Is it still the same wine?
Another issue with shutting all those wineries is what it does to the industry.
Winemaking, how it is learned & the future for those coming into the industry.
Big wine companies in the past had an important role in that, which Treasury doesn’t seem too concerned about.
Got thinking about that when I got my Pfeiffer & Rockford orders delivered this week.
I was reading the newsletter that comes with the Pfeiffer club order.
Chris Pfeiffer was reminiscing about his old days with Lindemans.
He started at their Corowa winery in the 60s, where he learned the Lindemans house style and all about making fortified wines.
He was the company winemaker for many years doing the multi-regional blends everyone drank in those days.
Then in the Lindemans winery in the Hunter (with Karl Stockhausen) & in the Coonawarra with John Vickery.
How do young winemakers get all that skill & mentoring in a big wine company these days?
Much the same story with Rocky O’Callaghan, who started with Seppelt learning his trade at all of their wineries.
When he established Rockford in 1984, he had relationships with growers in the Barossa from those days.
Joined at Rockford in the early days by Chris Ringland, who got his start at Saltram (another Treasury brand) & then did 18 vintages at Rockford while he set up his own wine label (Three Rivers) in the Barossa.
Every winemaker worth their salt has learned from the best before them & done the same for the next generation.

Re: the lack of winery. I'm reminded of the 'brewed under licence in the UK' beers. None taste the same as the original product and many taste very similar to each other. Maybe the 'recipe' matches the original (but it probably doesn't), but the water, hops machinery, storage etc. clearly makes a big difference.

With wine, there's the immediate issue of trucking grapes across state, lengthening the time from picking to pressing. Ambient yeasts may vary, but not at the industrial scale site. Meanwhile on an industrial scale, there will be greater sub-division of tasks, with the official 'winemaker' increasingly hands-off and the same people who do racking for Wolf Blass, probably do it for Wynns and Lindemans. Internal politicking is bound to occur, as individuals do what they can to climb the corporate ladder, so the 'concentration of talent' might not be as useful as they think. There will be efficiencies for sure, but does efficiency make for a good wine? Finally there's that classic aussie wine corp mindset, of it's the blend that matters, not the terroir. Winemakers will battle each other for grapes to go into 'their' brand, so the continuity that establishes a reputation goes out the window. True they'll put the winemaker at the heart of the winemaking, but that's not necessarily the win it sounds like, and viticulturists become mere suppliers to the magicians.

As for learning, I'm more positive. Rather than just placements within Australia, there are so many more opportunities to make wine across the world in the 'off-season'. From invites to be cellar rats at prestigious wineries, to opportunities to venture into the fringes of the wine world and have a more central role. It's still probably educational to have a year or two in TWS at one of these big complexes, but it won't be the same as those experiences you describe. Many of those labels have now had their day, or are already on the downslope to obscurity (or brand commercialisation), so rather than looking back at them, we'd be better looking at places like Woodlands, Craiglee, or others that are going to be independent stars going forward. They'll be better places to learn than a wine factory.

phillisc wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2026 9:00 am

Chuck wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2026 12:39 pm

GraemeG wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 8:15 pm Do they not still own Rosemount as well? I mean, how could you destroy the brand value in that...? I guess you practice on Lindemans, Seaview, Wolf Blass, (Seppelt), Tollana, Leo Buring...
It seems like only only brand to survive NOT being the "golden boy Penfolds" is Wynns...

I cut my wine teeth on those brands, haven't bought Penfolds in years and rarely buy Wynns. Don't know who is buying with China pivoting elsewhere. The rest of the industry has caught up to TWE and offer so much more value.

Yes warehouses full of Wynns, premiums going back to 2013 vintage, which simply aren't selling. I have paid $65-90 for the last four vintages of JR, excluding the very poor 2020. With an RRP of $175, etailers must be getting some of these vintages for $50 direct from TWE, before I get to them and there in lies the problem...may the race to the bottom long continue
Cheers Craig

Interesting you say the JR20 is no good? I mostly hear that JR isn’t made in years where it isn’t up to standard. What do you think is wrong with the 2020?