Now we GO.FARM

Tasmanian Premium Land isn't exactly the catchiest name for a significant new vineyard project. That's just fine with GO.FARM Australia's Liam Lenaghan. The leading asset management company doesn't do catchy. It does smart. Cutting edge. Big picture.

That's been its formula for success since Lenaghan – a fifth generation farmer – established the company back in late 2012. Today, GO.FARM Australia's assets under management amount to $1.3bn.

Its regionally employed full-time workforce exceeds 200 FTEs.

GO.FARM specialises in agricultural investments in South Australia, NSW, Victoria – and now, Tasmania. 

Its portfolio highlights a diverse range of products interstate. Broad acre cropping is complemented by the growing of specialty crops that include almonds, citrus, olives, tomatoes, and of course, wine grapes.

More than 12,500ha of native vegetation have been set aside as conservation reserves in the country's south-east.

"The purpose of GO.FARM is to transform Australian agriculture," says its managing director.

"We take things that are broken and we fix them. We're an agent for change."

Tasmanian Premium Land's 230ha vineyard developments outside Beaconsfield certainly met the brief. The project (pictured above) sprang to life in 2021 with the purchase of two parcels of land on Auburn Road in the West Tamar. They included a mature pine plantation being managed for export woodchip production.

Lenaghan had visited similar properties before. They were not wasteland. They were simply under-performing. Sites that represented lost opportunities to those that owned the assets. Lost opportunities, too, for the communities and landscapes in which they languished.

Former Roberts Ltd and RuralCo general manager Allan Barr (above) was given the plum job of rehabilitating the Tamar Valley site. Next came stewardship of its extensive new plantings of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris.

Barr says the site was largely chosen for its likely frost-free growing conditions and the Tamar Valley's long-held reputation for world-class grape and wine quality.

"The Tamar's a great place because you essentially have a semi-maritime climate," he explains.

"We don't have those really cool days that you often have in the Central Midlands, and particularly those really cool mornings at both ends of the growing season. Heat units are really important because we can't ripen our fruit if we don't have enough heat and sunshine to allow that to happen."

Independent climate data subsequently obtained for the site suggests it figures among the warmest in the Tamar Valley. Close to 1220 growing-degree days (GDD).

"Access to water is also pretty important," Barr continues.

"If you've got plenty of water, you can control a lot of critical factors, including frost in the right environment."

The Auburn Road property purchases included a 1465ML irrigation dam and an additional 1600ML water right.

The GO.FARM Tasmanian manager says nothing new could be done on the vineyard site until all traces of the property's plantation pines – and 65ha of forest regrowth – had been removed. Above ground and below ground.

'We did a helluva lot of picking up sticks and filling in holes in that first year," Barr recalls.

The vineyard's first vines weren't established until 2023. Before that came a thorough site assessment. Literally hundreds of soil pits were dug to inform Barr of exactly what would be required to regenerate depleted and impoverished soils.

"The reality is that vines are a permanent crop and they operate at depth, not like pasture or annual crops," he notes.

Precision agriculture and monitoring company AgLogic was engaged to provide state-of-the-art aerial and on-ground surveying. Soil and topographic maps of the gently undulating north-east facing site provided starting points for further investigation.

Barr says well-informed understanding of the property was essential in planning and managing the required fertiliser and irrigation inputs.

"You can't manage what you can't measure," he explains.

AgLogic's various hi-tech approaches to problem-solving were supported by plenty of low-tech back-up.

"Ag tech is the fine art of combining top-line monitoring systems, computer processing, and hefty shovels," muses AgLogic's Dr Reuben Wells.

"We certainly had a lot of smart people out on the ground, just walking around, making their own observations," Barr adds.

"Technology can often point out the problems but it doesn't necessarily tell you what the solutions are. One key issue we needed to address was mid-slope water seepage. We found there was a fair bit of variability in top soil depth.

"Understanding of soils and drainage generally go hand-in-hand."

AgLogic's comprehensive range of data inputs led to the creation of more than 100km of subsurface drains on the vineyard site.

Deep-ripping across the site was followed by the addition of more than 26t/ha of soil amelioration products, mostly composted organic matter in the form of animal manure. A witches' brew of other compounds – including lime and gypsum – was added to improve soil structure and drainage, as well as soil health.

Barr consulted leading viticulturist Dr Dylan Grigg – along with former Josef Chromy general manager and chief winemaker Jeremy Dineen – to determine the what, when, where and how of the project's basic lay-out, construction and planting material.

Grigg (pictured) knows the Tamar Valley like the back of his hand. When Western Australian wine company Overstory purchased Kayena's Goaty Hill in May 2020, they re-named it Small Wonder. Grigg was given the job of converting the 25ha vineyard from conventional farming to certified organic viticulture. 

Grigg and his team achieved their ambitious goal within three years. Small Wonder? Not.

In early 2026, Grigg was named Australian Viticulturist of the Year by the highly-influential Halliday Wine Companion.

Barr says vineyard rows were set out with laser-like precision, thanks to the operation of three RTK GPS trellis post drivers, manufactured by Germany's Wagner Plant Technology GmbH. The 50-year-old company is located in the Pfalz wine-growing region. It has an international reputation for producing leading-edge technology to support best practice viticulture.

Its RTK GPS trellis post drivers enabled posts to be positioned within 2cm of their optimum location, regardless of soil type and vineyard topography.

Wagner's GPS RTK technology was also employed across the company's vine planting program.

"Every vine and every post has a set of GPS co-ordinates and they're almost millimetre perfect," Barr says.

Indeed, Wagner's impressive technology not only plants vines, it's capable of calculating all material requirements for the field work to be undertaken prior to commencement. Depending on the selected vineyard planting pattern, an exact number of vines, posts, end posts and lengths of wire can be calculated and ordered.

Ordering and invoicing software incorporated into the technology removes some of the paperwork drudgery in addition to creating operational efficiencies.

GO.FARM's 20ha trial plantings in 2023 were followed by more ambitious planting programs in 2024 and 2025.

Its 'best practice' viticulture determined the site should be established with all of its vines grafted onto certified rootstocks.

Barr says the decision was not only driven by the desire to mitigate risks associated with the phylloxera vine bug potentially entering the industry at some point in the future. Equally important was the likelihood of the vineyard's grafted vines producing the best possible wine grape quality.

Vine yields were also likely to be increased, but there are limits to what's ideal, Barr admits.

"Based on having planted 3205 vines per hectare, we expect to be bringing in 10t-15t/ha when the vineyard reaches maturity after four years or so," he says.

The figures align with typical industry target yields for table or sparkling wine production.

Progress towards the company's targeted yields has been steady rather than spectacular.

Barr says the project's commitment to rootstocks caused something of a hiccup in the planting program's second year. A nursery shortfall in supplying the varieties and clonal selections ordered meant that the project could plant only 70ha of its anticipated 100ha in 2024.

However, last year's plantings saw the program running at peak efficiency.

Barely five employees were committed to the task – a tractor driver, two onboard workers and two trailing workers on the ground. Barr says the team were able to plant an average of 12,000 vines per day. More than three times the number likely to have been planted by hand.

Completion of the 140ha planting program in 2025 was achieved in eight weeks.

This year saw Tasmanian Premium Land's inaugural harvest from the 20ha plantings it established back in 2023.

Barr is justifiably happy with the fruit quality, given the season's protracted and unusually cool growing and ripening seasons. Just under 140 tonnes were machine-harvested and dispatched to the new Tasmanian Wineworks facility located at St Leonards, not far from the Launceston CBD.

Its ultimate destination will be in South Australia. A large multi-national company purchased the fruit for its premium wine portfolio. 

Long may that continue.

GO.FARM's management admits it's well aware that wine consumption is declining across the globe. Indeed, the company has been buying under-achieving vineyards in the Riverina and turning them into olive groves.

That accepted, the situation appears to be markedly different in cool-climate New Zealand, where industry body New Zealand Winegrowers recently reported wine volumes bucked the four percent decline experienced in 22 other markets.

GO.FARM believes Tasmania's cool-climate Tamar Valley can follow the lead set by the State's trans-Tasman neighbour.

"We still believe cool-climate viticulture can have an important place on the world stage," Barr explains.

"Tasmania currently produces less than one percent of Australia's wine, and Australia produces less than 5 percent of the world's wine. There's still plenty of room out there."

Last page update: 26 May 2026