The National Wine Centre in Adelaide will be taken over from July 1 by the University of Adelaide, which will pay the South Australian Government $1 million over forty years. While public will still be able to visit the permanent exhibition at a reduced price, the site will principally be used as a teaching facility for the students who attend the University’s twenty wine-related courses. Furthermore, the existing function spaces will still be available to the public after teaching hours. Parking will be increased, and a caf̩ is to be built in the main concourse. There’s little doubt that this announcement is an enormous win for the University of Adelaide and its students, who will now have access to some of the most lavish and expensively constructed educational space in the western world. The wine industry will retain its offices at the centre. Winemakers’ Federation of Australia Chief Executive, Ian Sutton, says: ‘No doubt, in a year or two, people will view the Wine Centre as having had something of a difficult birth but (then) evolving into a vibrant centre of learning and research and an important national and international resource.’
