Back in the 1980s Warren Randall was a very big name in Australian wine. When Seppelt ruled the sparkling wine roost prior to the arrival of Domaine Chandon and Arras, Randall’s beaming smile was photographed adjacent to virtually every sparkling wine trophy on the Australian show scene. And then he disappeared. Well he didn’t, really. He then worked for several years with now failed wine entrepreneur Andrew Garrett before in 1993 buying the McLaren Vale-based bulk wine business of Tinlin’s with Warren Ward and Andrew Fletcher. Tinlin’s was focused towards supplying McLaren Vale wine to some of Australia’s largest makers, but it steadily began to acquire vineyard assets in the region, which it funded through profit. These days it owns more than 20% of all McLaren Vale’s vineyards and through its Tatlins winery (the former Tatachilla winery in McLaren Vale’s main street) it has an overall processing capability of around 12,000 tonnes. Cleverly, the only vineyards Randall and his team buys are those sites with full water licenses. Recently, Randall bobbed up again, this time outside McLaren Vale. He is now managing director of Seppeltsfield Wines Pty Ltd. Back in 2007 Fosters sold the Seppeltsfield brand, its monumental buildings, its 240 acres of ancient vineyard, and nine million litres of fortified wine to The Seppeltsfield Estate Trust, whose unit holders included the shareholders of Kilikanoon and also Janet Holmes a Court, whose share Randall recently acquired. In his words, he’s now a part owner of the jewel in the crown of the old Seppelt empire for which he used to work. Leaning on the estate’s 1878 barrel, he confesses it’s an invigorating but also a humbling experience, but intends to give the property all the attention it deserves. ‘I’ll preserve and protect it and its fortified heritage’, he says. Part of Randall’s plan is to revitalise the property’s 1890-built gravity-fed winery so it can process 1,000 tonnes of ‘deluxe’ Barossa red fruit next vintage. Between 40-60 of the winery’s 120 eight-tonne open fermenters is about to be lined with stainless steel for the purpose. Following the Tinlin’s model, he will sell most of the high-end shiraz, cabernet, mataro and grenache he makes to other companies, but will also retain some for Seppeltsfield’s own brand. ‘For me it’s as exciting as it was when I first bought Tinlin’s and when I first began leaving ondenc out of Seppelt’s sparkling blends’, he says. ‘I now sing all the way to bed.’
