Life of Brian – the next chapter?

At last comes the not-so-surprising news that Brian Croser, Australian wine’s most prominent and certainly most cosmopolitan industry figure, is finally divorced from Petaluma, the winery he founded in the Adelaide Hills in the 1970s, and the corporation it spawned, subsequently the subject of a hostile takeover by brewers Lion Nathan. Con Moshos, who has been at Petaluma since 1981, takes the reins and Croser, like his mentor Len Evans with Rothbury, will continue to live overlooking the winery that was his baby but no longer belongs to him.

Now Croser has his own ambitious South Australian joint venture with...