Half stake in South Australian winery Rymill Coonawarra listed

Rymill Coonawarra is selling a half stake in the South Australian winery business.

The Australian Financial Review says it is available for between $15 million and $20 million as the family-owned wine maker seeks funds to boost export sales.

The business, run by fifth-generation managing director John Rymill, has 143 hectares planted with a capacity of 80,000 cases annually, although it has averaged only 41,000 over the past five years.

Gaetjens Langley partner Toby Langley has the offering.

Exports make up 10% of Rymill sales.

In 1890 John Riddoch founded Coonawarra, the history of which is inextricably entwined with the Riddoch and Rymill families.

Scottish-born John Riddoch had arrived during the Australian gold rush in 1852.

His daughter, Mary, grew up at Yallum and married Robert Rymill, the neighbouring Penola farmer.

John Riddoch Rymill was a distinguished polar explorer, whose son Peter and his wife Judy, both farmers and keen equestrians, established the Rymill Coonawarra Winery in 1990.

The majority of Rymill’s product is cabernet sauvignon.

Rymill Coonawarra winery, built in 1990, was designed by the Melbourne architect, Geoffrey Woodfall, who used regional building materials extensively, with external walls of Mount Gambier limestone, and internal of locally grown radiata pine.

Some 10 years after the completion of the winery, the Mitchell Beazley publication Wineries with Style pronounced it to be one of the top 80 in the world.