Moves to refresh Boronia vineyard and community gardens site with production of craft cider

THE former manager of a Boronia vineyard says the vines can be salvaged and the surrounding land is ripe for producing cider.

David and Pat Smith ran The Old Orchard Winery in Boronia and say the surrounding land could be perfect for producing craft cider. Picture: Lawrence Pinder.

THE former manager of a Boronia vineyard says the vines can be salvaged and the surrounding land is ripe for producing cider.

David Smith ran the Old Orchard winery at 254 Scoresby Rd for 10 years until his lease expired in 2015.

Mr Smith and his wife Pat now operate a winery, cidery and brewery in Yea, 100km north of Melbourne, but he said they want to take over the Knox Council-managed vineyard, which is under threat of being torn out.

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He said he was optimistic the vines could be restored to their former glory — despite a viticulturist’s report prepared for the council describing it as “almost certainly economically unviable”.

The report said the vines were dehydrated and neglected and it would take a minimum $20,000 of maintenance to bring up to scratch.

Mr Smith said he was confident he could do it for “a fraction of that cost”.

The council is reviewing the future of the prime 7ha piece of land, that includes 2ha of vines, the Knox Community Gardens and a large section of open space.

Mr Smith said he was in the process of having discussions with the council and representatives of the community gardens to talk about his proposal of saving the vineyard and planting fruit trees around it to make cider.

“The craft cider industry is going off like a rocket,” he said. “We’re making our own ciders in Yea, we have apple, pear, passionfruit, peach, strawberry and ginger. We could plant those trees around the vineyard.”

Mr Smith said the Boronia vines had the potential to produce good wine, especially the shiraz, which won the best shiraz at the 2008 Victorian Wines Show. Other grape varieties grown at the site include chardonnay, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc.