Calum Peace of Andrew Peace Wines at Piangil branches into cropping

THE first generation of Andrew Peace Wines at Piangil was canny enough to buy the land.

Calum Peace, of Andrew Peace Wines at Piangil. Photo Dale Webster.

THE first generation of Andrew Peace Wines at Piangil was canny enough to buy the land.

The second built a winemaking empire and now the third is showing just what the farm is capable of.

The property, which now covers 1500ha abutting the Murray River town northwest of Swan Hill, started off in the Peace family as a 150ha block, bought on a whim by Jim Peace in 1985.

Jim’s grandson, Calum, says the fitter and turner and his wife, Pam, had been visiting relatives at Boundary Bend and saw the vineyard for sale and decided to buy it.

“Grandpa was about 45 or 50, from Melbourne, and he’d never operated a farm before in his life,” Calum said.

“And he bought a vineyard.”

Calum’s father, Andrew, was 17 at the time and had intended to become an engineer but changed his plans, enrolling at South Australia’s Roseworthy Agricultural College to study winemaking.

From there grew Andrew Peace Wines, which today produces 25 million litres of wine a year. The scale of the operation and its contribution to the local economy is brought into perspective when you consider that Piangil’s population is 150 and the winery has 70 full-time staff on its books.

FOREIGN AFFAIR

DESPITE this, the company is better known overseas than it is in Australia.

It exports 95 per cent of its wine to Europe, the UK, US and Asia.

Five years ago Andrew Peace Wines was the fifth-biggest selling Australian wine brand in the UK and the only family-owned company in the top 10.

Of all alcoholic beverages sold in the UK at the time — wine, beer and spirits — it was the 43rd biggest seller by volume.

So why, people are asking, have they gone into cropping when they are so successful at growing grapes?

RISK TAKER

CALUM says the core business of ­Andrew Peace Wines is still making and selling wine but part of the reason for diversification is to get away from dealing with big supermarkets and spreading risk over other markets.

“The other reason we like growing grain or commodity crops is the ­nature of commodities,” he said.

“The prices may not necessarily be very high, but you can quit them very readily. If you have 1000 tonnes of wheat or corn or canola sitting in a silo and you want to turn that into cash tomorrow, you can ring someone up and sell it. The truck will turn up the next day and you’re paid in seven days.

“With wine it’s not that simple.”

SOFTLY, SOFTLY

THE Peace family’s move into cropping has been gradual over the past five years.

In 2010, Calum planted a dryland wheat crop on 450ha they had been sharefarming, but it was the purchase of a 600ha, derelict dairy farm next door in 2011 that saw opportunities to sow more than double summer and winter crops.

The restoration of this property and conversion from flooding to sub-surface drip ­irrigation earned them a gong in Melbourne Water’s Rural Water Awards last year.

Installing the irrigation tape was hard work, but according to Calum, well worth it for the water savings.

“We were looking for best practice,” he said.

“We had no prior knowledge of sub-surface drip irrigation so it was a great learning exercise.”

TOUR OF DUTY

CALUM and his father visited properties around Rochester and Shepparton that had the irrigation tape installed and compared it to others that were using overhead lateral and centre-pivot irrigation systems.

“In the end we liked the idea of the water efficiency you can get with tape as well as being able to put fertiliser straight to the root zone,” he said.

“We can be watering at the same time as we’re doing any other part of the operation, because the water is under the surface. We get less germination of weeds, which is a plus, and we’re about 40 per cent more water efficient than anyone who has flood irrigation.

“It reduces pumping costs, reduces compaction and ­allows more oxygen into the soil because we’re not forcing it out every time we flood or overhead irrigate.”

CASH COW

THE results speak for themselves.

“I think the reason we won the award it is that we’ve taken something that was extremely inefficient and basically unworkable and turned it into a highly productive farm,” Calum said.

“Last year we were growing a corn and wheat rotation and we harvested 23 tonnes of grain to the hectare in 13 months.

“It would almost take my next-door neighbour 10 years to grow that amount of grain off one hectare.

“I have flood-irrigated in the past and I used five megalitres of water to grow a six tonne per hectare wheat crop, whereas on the wheat I used 1.8 megalitres to grow an eight tonne crop on the back of the corn crop.”

CORN BLIMEY

OF the 1500ha under production on the property, 150ha is sown to corn, 70ha to sorghum, 200ha to irrigated wheat, 300ha to faba beans, 100ha to canola, 200ha to barley and 300ha to grape vines.

There is 800ha of irrigation — 450ha of sub-surface drip tape and 350ha of centre pivot — the different methods used to accommodate varying soil types on the property. Black river clay is better suited to the corn/winter crop rotation irrigated with sub-­surface tape, while the centre pivots work better in the light, red, loamy sand the vines are planted in.

Cropping at the moment equates to about 10 per cent of overall production, but that could change as new crops, ­including poppies, are considered.

“I think a lot of people are scared of doing something different,” Calum said.

“We’re growing corn and sorghum, but it’s not a crop that’s grown here because it’s not traditional.

“It’s a success though,” he said.

“ We’re doing well with it.

“We like to dream big — we’re always talking about what the next venture will be.”