If today you heard a long, protracted sigh from the direction of St Kilda Rd (Melbourne), it was certainly from Hugh Cuthbertson. For today the company he founded, Cheviot Bridge, has finally signed off with Bruce Tyrrell to buy the Long Flat brand and its inventory from Tyrrell’s Vineyards. Cheviot Bridge, which began as a concept to market the fruit and wine from four Yea Valley vineyards, has since evolved into a sophisticated virtual winery business with extensive domestic and international distribution systems. The purchase of Long Flat immediately gives branding grunt to Cheviot Bridge, which is confident it can be built into a national brand of around 280,000 cases. During the transition of ownership, the Tyrrell’s name will still be seen in conjunction with Long Flat for another fourteen months in the domestic market and three months in the export market. Today also marks the return of former Mildara Blass CEO, Ray King, to the wine industry, since he will now chair Cheviot Bridge, a company that now involves several of his former Mildara Blass colleagues. Cheviot Bridge projects sales revenue in 2003/04 of $35 million on an estimated 500,000 case sales. King is hopeful that in these times of the rising Australian dollar and the inability of many Australian wineries to sell their wines that more brands will be ‘shaken loose’. ‘The people who have been courageous or even heroic enough to put money behind us are keen to grow and expand the business aggressively’, he said today. ‘There is some quite adventurous money behind us.’ A full interview with Hugh Cuthbertson is shortly to appear in print and online in Volume 5 Issue 9 of Jeremy Oliver’s OnWine Report.
