"His signature curly locks are hard to miss, as is
the Rubik’s cube in his hands that illustrates his philosophy that both wine
and his label names are like a puzzle. The world’s most iconic puzzle has
also inspired his design for a future cellar door and office building" ... text on Chester Osborn from his d'Arenberg website ... photo Philip White
Fizz factory and Rubik's Cube: not the most popular spend from SA Regional Development fund
by PHILIP WHITE
Two famous wine companies have set neighbours and rivals seething by their successful prising of $2 million each from the South Australian government's Regional Development Fund.
It should surprise nobody that one of the key presumptions
of free enterprise is that governments should always strive to provide better
entry to the prize money by making its prisement easier.
Now government seems surprised at the scepticism those
bits of the wine idustry that haven't applied for money are showing the success
of Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) and d'Arenberg, two that have.
The $15 million per annum fund sees the department of
Primary Industry and Regions SA (PIRSA) distribute grants through Regions SA
and the Minister for Regional Development, Geoff Brock.
The Barossa and McLaren Vale recipients are the focus of
extreme winebiz bitchery.
The TWE money will be spent making the Wolf Blass Wines
Bilyara factory at Nuriootpa bigger: the warehouse gets bigger; the bottling
line improved and the machinery for making cheap fizz enlarged as TWE
closes its old Great Western fizz factory in Victoria.
This is an oil refinery. My habit of calling enormous unclad steel wineries 'refineries' was much derided by those who had them. But when the Wolf Blass Bilyara winery was being built at Nuriootpa, in the Barossa, they sent out a press release saying they'd saved a lot of money by engaging a refinery designer/engineer to help with the steelwork ... there are no photographs of the actual giant Bilyara winery on the TWE websites ... too big, maybe?
TWE had only just managed to incorporate all its
Rosemount manufacture into the giant Nuriootpa refinery after closing the
Rosemount winery in McLaren Vale, one of that region's biggest, last year. It is also determinedly moving more of its
Wynns Coonawarra winemaking to the same central Barossa location.
People were openly, derisively disbelieving when I
forecast this here last year. It wasn't my idea.
Today's whingeing, of course, comes mainly from McLaren
Vale, Great Western and Coonawarra.
Regional critics say it's hypocritical for government to
justify the funding by saying the entire $23 million extension will create 30
new jobs, as this is only a fraction of the total jobs lost in those regions
due to the rationalisation.
They say that TWE would have built the thing without any
government assistance, and that the size of the slice - $2 million out of $15
million - is too big for those who missed out on the money and too small for
TWE to notice.
The company is based in Melbourne; it generates revenues
in the realm of $2 billion.
Peter Taylor,
TWE’s Director Wine Production – Australia & New Zealand, came out to shake
Minister Brock's hand and put some of this into perspective.
"The Wolf
Blass Packaging Centre was purpose-built and cost over $100 million when it was
commissioned in October 2005," he said. "This $2 million grant is the
best tenth birthday gift we could wish for. It sets the Centre up for the next
decade, and I want to sincerely thank the South Australian Government and
Minister Brock for supporting this important facility."
The author last year with Wolf Blass and John Glaetzer ... photo John 'Guitar' Preece
McLaren Vale, meanwile, seems genuinely rattled at the
audacity of Chester Osborne scoring his $2 million. This is to assist paying
for his much-discussed $11 million "Rubik Cube” visitors' centre, a
six-storey cube for offices, tasting, dining and entertainment on a tower
beside the winery. This will dominate the McLaren Vale skyline and give
visitors a good look at the district, not to mention the vast rambling mess of
d'Arenberg winery buildings that already cover that hilltop.
This huge assemblage of add-ons is ugliest viewed from
Seaview Road: it makes Tinlins look tidy.
Rubik's Cube buildings are hardly new or novel, and need not be too intrusive height-wise ... this one at the Melbourne Museum looks entertaining in its park, but remains lower than the tree tops ... for images of other Rubik Cube buildings click here
Geoff Brock says the Cube will employ "up to 150" during construction, and "58 new ongoing jobs within 18 months of the opening."
It seems government is annoyed that more folks haven't
applied for such funding, rather than sit back bitching about those who have.
One thing is dead certain: the seething unpopularity of
these two large bags of taxpayers' gold going where they have seems certain to
ensure thay are so much discussed that they'll become a kind of viral Youtube,
Vine or meme to promote the fact that more bush folk should be putting their
hands up for taxpayer cash to make jobs for their fellow countrymen.
So call it a $4 million ad campaign for free money that
just happens to create 88 new long-term jobs.
If you believe those numbers.
This process certainly doesn't appear to be too demanding
as far as good taste goes.
Prisement could just be the new go.
Which brings Greg Trott to mind. The beloved founder of
Wirra Wirra died with a promotional dream undelivered.
At the Gateway Vineyard, the first one you encounter on
your left as you drive from Old Noarlunga, up the hill to enter the Vales on Victor
Harbor Road, Trott wanted something a bit more musical than a giant Rubik Cube
on a stalk.
He planned the biggest bell on Earth. He'd even tracked
down a bell foundry in Britain which promised it could cast and deliver it.
Trott wanted this erected on a great belltower at the top of the hill in the
Gateway vines, where visitors could watch it swing and ring every morning for
elevenses, when glasses all over that bonny embayment would clink in
celebration of the district's main purpose.
His winery and tasting room were twelve kilometres
distant. Didn't matter to Trott. He was thinking of his fellow countrymen and
what would be best for all of them. Hardly a selfish or greedy man, Trott.
Greg Trott ... photograph Philip White
If his bell had got up it would now no doubt be raising
the ire of the residents of Labor's new Tupperware Tuscany across the road: the
new homebuyers of the Seaford Heights development were one thing Trott thought
he'd defeated.
I'd love to know what he'd think if he came back for a
bit of a peal and spotted Chester's giant Rubik Cube sprouting up a couple of
hilltops away and that horrid villa rash he thought he'd stopped spreading
malignantly.
Here's to hoping I'm not showing too many shades of scept
for these turbulent times. I can't afford to upset the tunnels to the money.
I'm planning to hit the Minister for a few mill to employ regional poets to
stand on plinths and read in the town squares.
I don't care much whether the plinths come from the
McLaren Vale quarry or the Barossa one.
Trott died leaving one bell anyway: the tasteful Wirra Wirra belltower reflected here in a rainbarrel ... photo Philip White
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