From organic family winery to ALDI supplier: how $30m from China made it possible for McLaren Vale’s Gemtree

From organic family winery to ALDI supplier: how $30m from China made it possible for McLaren Vale’s Gemtree

When Melissa Brown and husband Mike converted their family’s McLaren Vale vineyard to biodynamic practices in 2008, the patriarch said they’d “lost their marbles”. Being certified organic is yet to prove profitable – yet it’s set off a chain of events that’s turning Gemtree into a global contender in the wine business. “Melissa’s a viticulturist and our ‘resident greenie’, so we were eating all this organic food at home but then coming to work and nuking the vineyards with fertilisers, herbicides and pesticide.”

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