Channons ready for new chapter

THE huge 225-megalitre dam on this winery is attracting interest from all sorts of buyers.

NEW CHAPTER: Robert and Peggy Channon are looking ahead to the future with plans to sell their award winning winery. Picture: Matthew Purcell

ONE of the region's best-known wineries is for sale, as its owners ready themselves for retirement.

Robert and Peggy's Channon's business, the multiple award-winning Robert Channon Wines on Amiens Rd, is known nationally for its Verdelho.

A Queensland trailblazer, Robert Channon Wines was the first in the state to be awarded five stars from famed wine critic James Halliday and has made gold medal and trophy-winning wines consistently since 2001.

The 129ha property includes a winery and cellar door, two vinyards across eight hectares, a six-bedroom sandstone house with floodlit tennis court, an irrigated oak paddock with trees inoculated for truffles and horse stables.

It also has a three-bed house on 40ha that could be split as a separate purchase including the winery, listed for $1.95m.

But it's the huge 225-megalitre dam that really sets the property apart from all others.

"It has an enormous water supply and a water licence,” Mr Channon said.

"Our wines have achieved quite a reputation, particularly our Verdelho has received quite a lot of praise,” he said.

"When we started I think there were 14 vinyards operating and now there are somewhere between 40 and 50.”

The region's wine making industry has become "a great deal more sophisticated” than when he started Robert Channon Wines and the wines have "lept ahead in quality”.

"It's a great district to be part of,” he said.

When the Channons bought the property in 1998, it "just had cattle on it” but they quickly established two vinyards.

He was a lawyer and Mrs Channon was a teacher when they decided to shift focus and move to Stanthorpe.

Over the following five years, they built the house, the the winery and cellar door.

Robert and Peggy at the rock with dog Tosca in 2002. Picture: Contributed

Since 2001, Robert's wines have won 36 trophies and 26 gold medals for Chardonnay, Verdelho, sparkling, Pinot Gris, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

Its vineyards are permenent-netted and drip-irrigated, and last week the final 50 tonnes of grapes for this season's crop were harvested.

White grape varieties in the vinyards are Verdelho, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris and red grapes are Shiraz, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The property has played host to more than 100 popular concerts, held at a permanent stage in the wine storage building known as Swigmore Hall.

The events schedule has created a great source of wine sales and attracts a regular audience, Mr Channon said.

Singing Lake Cafe has a view of the lake, caters for 60 and has a grassed courtyard for al fresco dining, and includes a commercial kitchen.

Mr Channon hopes the property will sell to "someone very much like us, who will love it and want to work it to its best possible extent and carry on all that we've done and make it even better”.

Sales agent David Schnitzerling said several people had been interested in the property since it was listed a year ago.

"You can buy the winery and 100 acres [40ha] or you can buy the whole property,” he said.

"It's got an amazing 225-megalitre dam and the whole homestead and winery overlooks the dam, so everything faces towards the dam and overlooks this lovely big lake.

"It is really one of the leading wineries in the area, and the only reason the Channons are selling it is becuase they're at a different stage in their lives.”

Asked whether he would recommend a tree change to the Granite Belt, Mr Channon said: "definitely”.

"It's been absolutely fantastic,” Mr Channon said.

"We'll stay locally, we're very much a part of the community here now.”