{"id":181213,"date":"2025-09-30T23:58:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T23:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/181213\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T23:58:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T23:58:13","slug":"health-battle-heralds-end-of-an-era-for-family-run-festival-favourite-wignalls-wines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/181213\/","title":{"rendered":"Health battle heralds end of an era for family-run festival favourite Wignalls Wines"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 43 years of early rising, nurturing vines and “thriving on stress”, Rob Wignall has called time on his family-run winery in Western Australia’s Great Southern.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1981, Mr Wignall’s father, Bill, developed a strong interest in wine and decided to research which vines would grow best on their farm, 15 minutes outside Albany.<\/p>\n

“The science showed the Albany climate was virtually identical to the famous Burgundy [wine] region in France,” Mr Wignall said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Wignalls Wines was started by Pat (middle) and Bill (right), before son Rob took over in 2004. (Supplied: Rob Wignall)<\/p>\n

After two decades of producing wine, Mr Wignall’s father had to take a step back, as he developed Lewy body dementia<\/a>, a degenerative brain disease.<\/p>\n

“When he got ill, he got ill,” Mr Wignall said.<\/p>\n

“[My wife Claire and I] took over in 2004 as directors of the business \u2026 that was like a succession plan that was always going to be there, but arguably we were forced into it pre-term.<\/p>\n

“It was a little bit daunting, but the first thing we did was bring in a number of consultants and said, ‘How can we improve?'”<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

The Great Southern region is home to vineyards renowned for cool-climate wines.\u00a0 (ABC Great Southern: Samantha Goerling)<\/p>\n

Over the next two decades, the winery hosted dozens of music festivals with acts including Paul Kelly and Darryl Braithwaite, and won “countless” awards for its wines.<\/p>\n

But the Wignalls have finally decided it is time to chase something new.<\/p>\n

Continuing family legacy<\/p>\n

Behind the tough call was Mr Wignall’s blood cancer diagnoses in 2019 and doctors advising him to “exit a high-pressure job” and start looking after himself.<\/p>\n

“The last couple of years I’ve been doing a lot of things for my general health \u2026 and we’ve been managing that very well, but in recent times it’s [cancer] thriving on stress,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Wignall said, despite it being the right time to move on, he wanted to continue honouring the legacy his parents started.<\/p>\n

So the family has chosen to lease, rather than sell, to Paul and Bianca Nelson, from nearby Denmark, winegrowers Mr Wignall said shared a similar vision.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Bianca and Paul Nelson already own and operate vineyards in the region. (ABC Great Southern: Kate Forrester)<\/p>\n

“A lot of people have asked, ‘Why are you retiring the label? Surely you would just sell up and move on?'” he said.<\/p>\n

“If it wasn’t a family name, it wouldn’t have been such a difficult decision.<\/p>\n

“But having a family name linked into your business, it wasn’t in our [interest] selling our family heritage.”\"Wine<\/p>\n

The Nelsons have just completed their first vintage at the former Wignalls Winery. (ABC Great Southern: Kate Forrester)<\/p>\n

The Nelsons, who already own and operate vineyards across the region, said they were ready to grow “a piece of Albany history”.<\/p>\n

“Albany is experiencing a big growth in population and we feel, from a business perspective, it was the right time to make this move,” Mr Nelson said.<\/p>\n

“Given we’ve been operating in Denmark for so long, we see potential in consumer engagement.<\/p>\n

“There is a huge demand for things to do in Albany.<\/p>\n

“It’s also that time of transition now. People are either retiring or handing their business over to the next generation and I think there is bit of a gap in the market.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Nelson hopes to continue working closely with others to unlock opportunities across the region. (ABC Great Southern: Kate Forrester)<\/p>\n

Despite the long hours and health concerns, Mr Wignall has countless fond memories of his family’s winery, including the “successful concerts” they hosted over 27 years.<\/p>\n

Mr Nelson said it was a vision he wanted to carry forward.<\/p>\n

“From a local point of view, there [are] so many good acts from around here we want to promote and give an opportunity. It’s going to be a big [part] of what we do,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Concerts at Wignalls Winery drew crowds from Albany and beyond. (Supplied: Rob Wignall)<\/p>\n

Mr Wignall said he and his family were looking forward to their next chapter.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day, I’m a typical farmer. I’ve got an asset behind me that’s worth some money, but I’ve got very little money in the bank, so I have to go out and find myself a job,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m truly looking forward to taking orders from a boss instead of having to issue those orders \u2026 hopefully not having to work seven days a week, 80 hours a week.<\/p>\n

“Onwards and upwards, and maybe look at working for the next six or seven years and then one day doing that final retirement dream that we all dream of.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 43 years of early rising, nurturing vines and “thriving on stress”, Rob Wignall has called time on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,63886,99,1617,116397,1793,116399,116398,116400,116395,42387,116396],"class_list":["post-181213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blood-cancer","tag-business","tag-cancer","tag-lewy-bodies","tag-retirement","tag-southern-wa-wines","tag-wa-wines","tag-why-did-wignalls-wines-close","tag-wignalls-winery","tag-wine","tag-winery-music-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}