Yarra Valley wine region under threat from urban development, according to former industry boss

VICTORIA is not doing enough to protect one of its biggest tourist drawcards, according to a former wine industry chief executive.

THE former chief executive of Domaine Chandon Australia believes Melbourne’s urban sprawl is threatening the Yarra Valley as a wine making and tourist destination.

Dr Tony Jordan, who set up the Australian arm of French champagne maker Moët & Chandon three decades ago, said Victoria was not doing enough to protect one of its biggest tourist drawcards from overdevelopment.

He would like to see winemakers in the Yarra Valley shielded with strict development laws modelled on those which protect other famous winemaking areas such as California’s Napa Valley.

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Tony Jordan wants laws to protect the Yarra Valley wine region.

“The Yarra Valley is under threat from development,” Dr Jordan said.

“As soon as there is a significant amount of urbanisation the wineries have to move out and they don’t have anywhere to go. There is no second Yarra Valley.

“What are the big attractions in Victoria — it’s Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road and the Yarra Valley. It does require that governments, both federal and state, recognise it and protect it.”

Dr Jordan believes the Yarra Valley wine region is under threat from urban development.

Dr Jordan, who lives in the Yarra Valley, said protections put in place to protect the area as a wine making region were suffering “a death by one thousand cuts” if more development was approved.

He has been a leading figure in the nation’s wine industry for close to four decades, collecting a Member of the Order of Australia for his efforts.

Urban development could eventually encroach on a big tourist drawcard.

As well as launching Domaine Chandon Australia, he ran the Cloudy Bay winery in New Zealand and co-founded the nation’s first wine making university course at Charles Sturt University.