Tallagandra Hill’s David Faulks and Mary McAvoy: “Our desire is to spend the balance of our life differently, from a family and business sense.” Photo: Tallagandra Hill.
A Canberra region winery that was remade into an environmentally sustainable operation and then evolved into an award-winning music and events venue is for sale.
David Faulks and Mary McAvoy acquired Tallagandra Hill near Gundaroo north of Canberra in 2016 and have spent the last nine years building a business that has multiple income streams and vineyards thriving from sustainable agriculture practices and producing great grapes for medal-winning wines.
But the call of family is strong and when one half lives in another country – Ireland, in Mary’s case – the commitment that an operation like Tallagandra Hill demands can be overwhelming.
David said the couple would be dividing their time between Canberra and Ireland, where they have bought and are renovating a heritage guest house.
“A key factor in why we’re selling is that we want to spend three months a year over there closer to her family and, actually, strangely, spend more time with our family here in Australia as well, especially with the grandkids who are very energetic and we look forward to spending more time with them rattling around,” he said.
David said the couple could have installed managers, and there are such people available to assist whoever buys the property, but their full-on personalities would not have allowed the type of balance they were seeking.
“Our desire is to spend the balance of our life differently, from a family and business sense, and our personalities and nature are 100 per cent-type people,” he said.
“We’ve given it an incredible amount of heart and soul over a long period of time and that’s been part of the delight of what we’ve been doing, but we can’t do that and do the other stuff that we want to do, not all at the one time.”
When they bought the property, David and Mary set about refreshing the brand and changing farming practices.
This included sustainable vineyard management practices such as environmentally friendly spraying, no under-vine spraying, programmed solar powered irrigation and careful water management, as well as a compost-based organic nutrient program in the vineyard.
They also launched Tallagandra Hill as a music venue hosting hundreds of artists including Jimmy Barnes, Kate Ceberano, The Black Sorrows, Troy Cassar-Daley and The Waifs, with an average of 30 music shows and 30 private events per year.
It is also a wedding and events venue following the expansion of the cellar door business and function space and, in recent years, the addition of boutique cottage accommodation.
The 15 hectare property includes 12 ha under vines, including Vermentino, Viognier, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo and Cabernet Franc, some of which have won awards.
David is particularly proud of the Vermentino, which in the last 18 months has won two trophies and about 20 medals, and outsells the other varieties. He attributes the vineyard’s resilience and quality to the organic nutrient program.
He is a big fan of new varieties and champions the Canberra region for producing distinct regional vintages.
David said it has been humbling to hear the reaction from the Tallagandra customer base, or ‘family’, and from some of their celebrity friends like the Barnes family and Kate Ceberano, when news of the sale broke.
He said he was desperate for the music side of the business to continue given the quality of the acts they have attracted and still attract, and their affection for the venue and its intimacy.
There are dates piled up to August, including Irish singer Camille O’Sullivan this Saturday and at Easter the Black Sorrows, then Wendy Matthews, Alex Lloyd and David Campbell.
All of the business streams – wine, music, weddings and events, accommodation – flowed into each other, David said.
“Aside from being almost like a spiritual experience, having these people around here and having a close connection with them and their artistry is amazing, but the other thing is it’s just been really bloody good for business,” he said.
“Every time we run a music event, our sales go up about 300 per cent.
“The awareness of our wine and our other experiences and products is directly linked to doing those things. It’s not just whatever revenues come out of an individual event, and that’s, I hope, the beauty of what someone else will see in the property.
“This is not your classic vineyard sort of rural property at all.
“We’re very consciously seeing ourselves selling a business and that there is a lifestyle opportunity attached to that, not the other way around.”
David said he and Mary would be around to assist a new buyer with staged transition and introduce them to others who could help manage the various arms of the business.
“We’ve got a sustainable ongoing business here that can grow two or three times with people who are motivated and interested and, you know, heaven forbid, they might actually be better at it than we are,” he said.
David would not put a number to the property but said a yardstick could be Lake George Winery, which sold at auction in 2023 for $4.55 million.
But Tallagandra Hill had more events and accommodation capacity and was probably a better location, he said.
The property comes with a cellar door building with a commercial kitchen that seats 50 and a further 80 in the outdoor courtyard, and its beating heart, the events hall/function venue, which also has a commercial kitchen and can accommodate 200 guests.
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom residence is a solar passive architect-designed home with multiple living areas, a six-car garage, a swim spa in the courtyard, and an 8.8 kW solar system plus an 8 kW inverter.
There is a wine shed and a separate shed for machinery and storage.
Chris Dixon from Ray White Canberra is marketing the property, which is being sold by expression of interest, closing at 4 pm on 17 April.
Original Article published by Ian Bushnell on Riotact.
