Vineyard fears bureaucratic rescue of ‘non-existent frogs’

One of Australia’s more esteemed makers of shiraz is locked in an existential struggle with bureaucrats intent on turning his historic winery into a haven for a frog he says hasn’t been seen on the property for 50 years. Pat Carmody, whose Craiglee Vineyard sits on Melbourne’s western outskirts, discovered by chance in 2013 that his property had had a growling grass frog overlay placed on it covering 75 per cent of the property. On a horseshoe bend of Jackson’s Creek at Sunbury, the vineyard produces a few thousands cases a year of some the ¬nation’s finest shiraz, regularly ranking in Halliday’s top 100.