Wednesday, October 5

Vineyard Sold to Gas Firm



SALE: David Clarke fought coal seam gas.

THE Hunter vineyard of prominent coal seam gas objector and merchant banker, the late David Clarke, is set to be sold to AGL, the very company whose exploration activities he opposed.

Contracts are said to have been exchanged last week between the executors of Mr Clarke’s estate and the gas company for the original Poole’s Rock vineyard.

Mr Clarke, the former chairman of Macquarie Bank, founded the vineyard in 1988 in the Broke-Fordwich area.

He later acquired the Poole’s Rock estate and cellar door site at Pokolbin that was sold to the owners of the Audrey Wilkinson vineyard late last year.

Mr Clarke provided financial support to the Hunter Valley Protection Alliance’s campaign against AGL, and also lent his name to the efforts of the Hunter Wine Industry Association to have the vineyards excised from AGL’s vast exploration licence area. He died in April after a battle with cancer.


Newcastle Herald

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