During the devastating bushfires which swept across South Australia on Friday December 20th, which destroyed 40,000 hectares across SA, and 25,000 hectares in the Cudlee Creek fires, Tilbrook Estate Wines lost their vineyard, winery, all of their wine stock, barrels, equipment, and multiple sheds.
Despite the CFS throwing more than 30 appliances and 6 water bombers at it, the fire was out of control in less than an hour and it destroyed everything in front of it.
In a Facebook post about the fires, James Tilbrook said “All the bottled wine has exploded. The heat was that intense it melted empty bottles. All the equipment is fire damaged.”
“At the moment still trying to process it all. Our biggest problem is that we have lost our livelihood, which means we can’t pay our mortgage or other outgoings. Today at 11am the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market is auctioning 8 x 6 bottle packs of wine to raise funds for us. This is all the stock we have left from the cellar door, the rest was in the winery.”
With initial plans to sell their last few cases of current vintage at Sunday’s Adelaide Showground Farmer’s Market on 22nd December, a public outpouring of support as seen a change of plans, with an auction now to take place both at the markets, and online, to help them fundraise to recover from such a devastating loss.
The auction will be at 11am Sunday (today) at Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market in the demonstration kitchen.
At today’s auction there will be 8 half dozen cases of wine. 7 are current vintage and one is a mixed 6 pack of the wine Tilbrook Estate are best known for which has been taken from James Tilbrook’s personal cellar. James’ personal collection contains the Tilbrook Estate Chardonnay and is the 2002, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2010 Reserve Chardonnay plus 1 x 2010 “Estate” Chardonnay. The other wines include Sauv Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Reserve Pinot Noir, Syrah and 2 x 6 ‘belle Rosé Fizz.
Glam Adelaide will also be helping to organise an online auction (details will be published here and across our social media channels) for some museum stock, the sale of which will help to pay expenses while the Tilbrooks work towards a new vintage.
A GoFundMe campaign has also been set up to help the Tilbrooks get back on their feet. Here’s the link, so please be generous if you can.
Please get behind this, a fantastic Adelaide Hills winery, along with so many other businesses and wineries affected by the fires.
For more SA Bushfire Updates and Community Assistance, join the Facebook group here.
We’ll also be posting a list of other businesses you can support who were affected by Friday’s destructive bushfires.
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