Owners desperate to reopen Boronia’s Old Orchard Winery after lease expiry

COUNCIL red tape has left an award winning winery in Melbourne’s outer east rundown and overgrown after a lease on the land expired a year ago, its former owners say.

Pat and David Smith want to reopen The Old Orchard Winery in Boronia, which has been shut for more than a year after its lease expired. Picture: Lawrence Pinder

COUNCIL red tape has left a once-thriving Boronia winery rundown and overgrown after a lease on the land expired a year ago, its former owners say.

Wantirna South couple David and Pat Smith said they were “desperate” to reopen their award-winning Old Orchard Winery in Scoresby Rd after their nine-year lease to manage it expired last year.

Mr Smith said Knox Council, which manages the 8ha site on Crown land, had only offered him a month-by-month lease, forcing him to vacate on July 31 last year.

“It means our gold award-winning vineyard has disappeared, it is all very sad.”

The vineyard has had a long and controversial history. It was planted in 1981 as part of a work-for-the-dole scheme sponsored by the council with the aim of turning a profit.

The grape varieties imported from South Australia failed to thrive in Victorian conditions, but the council continued to produce wine that was served at civic functions and given away as corporate gifts.

The true cost of the venture was revealed when State Government-appointed commissioners took over the city during council amalgamations in the mid-1990s and shut down the ratepayer-subsidised operation.

The lease was advertised and Swinburne TAFE’s Lilydale campus took over in 1995, incorporating the vineyard in its viticulture program until 2004, a year before the Smiths saw it advertised for lease.

Mr Smith said the council engaged a subcontractor to manage the site after the lease ran out, but only minimal work had been done.

“It’s not very nice – it’s overgrown; it will take a lot of work to bring it back to working order,” he said.

Mr Smith said the council finally advertised the site for lease last November, and the couple reapplied.

“We’re desperate and our customers are desperate,” he said.

The couple have been selling their wine online and out of a little shop in Yea.

Mr Smith, who also runs an IT company, said the winery was their “labour of love”.

“I feel more for the very dedicated and loyal customers that we had, we used to have some great times up there,” he said.

“It was becoming a destination, and it can become a destination again if we can only get a lease.”

Council acting chief executive Kerry Stubbings said the council was in negotiations with Mr Smith before his lease expired and he chose to leave, but did not respond to other questions about that lease process.

Ms Stubbings said the council was considering other expressions of interest for the site, and options would be considered later this year.

Maintenance had been done since the Smiths left, she said.