Ryecroft Winery to close, 33 McLaren Vale jobs to go

A total of 33 jobs will be lost at Ryecroft Winery when it ends wine production at McLaren Vale, south of Adelaide.

Photo : Jan Lokan

But the cellar door operation there will continue.

Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) said all affected employees could apply for jobs at its other sites or would get their redundancy entitlements.

The Ryecroft workers were told the news that operations would be wound down immediately, when they arrived at the winery on Monday.

The process, however, could take several months.

TWE said wine production would move to its other sites as Ryecroft had been running at half capacity for several years and this was unsustainable.

Earlier in the year, TWE cut about 175 jobs across its Australian and international operations due to what it said were "challenging conditions" in the wine industry.

Director of wine production Peter Taylor said the decision to close Ryecroft operations had not been taken lightly.

"The decision to stop operating Ryecroft winery was an extremely difficult one and is certainly not a reflection on the experience or capability of the team working there," he said.

"This is a tough but necessary action that TWE has to take. We have several wineries within our production footprint and need to ensure that they operate at the highest possible capacity to maximise the efficiencies of our network."

Ryecroft winery had produced Rosemount wines and TWE said the brand would still be made using its other South Australian wineries.

"Rosemount wines previously made at Ryecroft will continue to source their fruit from McLaren Vale and surrounding regions, the only change is the location where the wine will be made" Mr Taylor said.

Source : ABC News   10th November, 2014