Martinborough vineyard fire costs half a million, leaves manager in tears

A fire that destroyed an implement shed and valuable machinery at a Martinborough winery did about half a million dollars of damage, but could easily have cost a lot more. Murdoch James Estate founder Roger Fraser said had workers removed about 50 kilometres of customised bird netting worth up to $200,000 on Wednesday, just hours before the blaze. “If they’d been in there [during the fire], we would never have been able to replace them before vintage,” he said.