Treasury Wine Estates has agreed to sell Seppelt, including the brand, the Great Western winery and cellar door, and the Drumborg vineyard near Portland, to a Victorian group led by Aaron Drummond, chief executive and co-owner of Mornington Peninsula’s Stonier. The price was not disclosed. Completion is expected in mid-October.
The package covers about 740 acres across Victoria and South Australia, including roughly 290 acres at the core Great Western estate and 94 acres under vine at Drumborg. Seppelt is best known for cool-climate wines and sparkling Shiraz. The Seppelt name dates to 1851. Great Western was founded in 1865 and became part of Seppelt in 1918. Great Western was founded in 1865 and became part of Seppelt in 1918. The site is known for its underground cellars, The Drives, first excavated by local gold miners in 1868 and among the largest of their kind in Australia.
Drummond confirmed the purchasers as himself, the McLeod family and Celina Thickins. In 2022 the same families bought Stonier from Accolade Wines, after Drummond returned to Victoria from a period as general manager of Craggy Range in New Zealand. That purchase followed the same outline: a heritage Australian wine business moving from a large group into private Victorian ownership.
TWE framed the deal as part of the tighter portfolio and simpler production footprint set out to investors in June. Angus Lilley, managing director for Australia, New Zealand and Europe, called it a positive outcome that keeps Seppelt in Victorian hands. Drummond said Seppelt had produced “some of the greatest wines in this country” and that building on its reputation as a pioneer of Australian sparkling and fine wine was “an absolute privilege.” He also put it more plainly: the group is “just bringing it all back to life.”
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Seppelt has spent decades inside larger corporate groups. The Barossa birthplace, Seppeltsfield, left the group as early as 2007. TWE has previously said Great Western was under-utilised and increasingly non-viable as a production facility, and shifted production into other wineries in its Australian network. What is being sold is the brand, a historic wine site, vineyards and a working cellar door, moving from a global wine group into private Victorian ownership.
After F26 showed the pressure on the group’s broad portfolio, Ascent narrowed the business around power brands and selected regional heroes. This sale takes that direction down to a specific asset. It does not change the strategy. It executes it.
What remains unknown is the price, and therefore the financial impact on Treasury. For Seppelt, the next question is what the new owners do with Great Western once the corporate timetable falls away.
