Coonawarra wine producers threatened by a proposed bypass road have backed legal action against the scheme.

The road would cut across valuable vineyard land affecting Foster’s, Rathbone’s, Parker Estate and Bill Brand.

A group of residents has now launched legal action in the Supreme Court of South Australia to stop Wattle Range Council’s attempt to seize the land to build the bypass road around the town of Penola.

Stuart McNab, Foster’s Group director of wine production in Australia and New Zealand, agreed he wanted to see heavy vehicle traffic removed from the centre of Penola, but added:

‘The famous Coonawarra terra rossa soil is just as valuable to the economic wellbeing of this community as the land is to our social and recreational wellbeing. And as the largest ratepayer to the Wattle Range Council, we firmly believe they have an obligation to broaden their minds and start seeing this issue through the eyes of the Penola community.’

Written by Rebecca Gibb

Rebecca Gibb MW
Rebecca Gibb MW
Decanter Magazine & DWWA Judge

Rebecca Gibb MW is a wine journalist and editor who has also founded Bamboozled games, ‘the world’s first wine and spirit puzzle makers’. Having spent six years living in New Zealand, she has recently returned to her native north-east England. While in New Zealand, she became a Master of Wine, graduating top of her class and winning the Madame Bollinger medal for excellence in tasting. A former winner of both the UK’s young wine writer of the year and the Louis Roederer Emerging Wine Writer, her first book The Wines of New Zealand was published in 2018. She also runs wine events and has her own consultancy business The Drinks Project. She was a judge at the 2019 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).