Sad details regarding the estate dispute that’s divided Coonawarra’s Reschke winemaking family have been revealed.
Burke Reschke – the owner of Reschke Wines – is battling his mother Vivian and brother Dru – who owns Koonara Wines – in the Supreme Court of South Australia over patriach Trevor’s will, which split the estate between his two sons.
Trevor died in 2008 and elder brother Burke expected to inherit the estate.
He tells The Australian: “That’s the way it traditionally was: the eldest son is asked first, and if he has the passion, he inherits
“It’s not a gift, sometimes it’s a burden. You have to hang on to it for the next generation. You work at it, and invest everything in it, you take all the risks. Other family members get a financial settlement. They get to do what they want in their lives. But one person has to be in charge to protect the land for the next generation.”
Dru with his father Trevor and mother Vivian
However, his father gave two parcels of land each to him and his brother Dru, with a fifth parcel to eventually be split between them after wife Vivian was allowed to lease the land for no consideration for the term of her natural life.
Burke says he launched legal proceedings when he did not get what he believed was his fair share. But the emotional toll of the decision has been high and has lead to him no longer speak to his mother.
“Putting it simply, it has destroyed us,” Burke admits. “I would advise anyone in a similar situation to sit down and talk it out, because it’s hard to heal a family once the damage is done. But sometimes, you just can’t.”
The Reschke family has been a landowner in the region for more than 100 years – Henry Reschke and his wife Alice started a Hereford cattle stud there in 1906 and gradually expanded their land ownership. Henry died in 1975 and left the bulk of the land to his son, Reg Reschke, who left the bulk of it to his son, Trevor.
Trevor had three children with wife Vivian – Burke, Joanne and Dru.
Both Burke and Dru both spent time working with their father on the property.
Dru notes on the Koonara Wines website: “I helped dad set up and manage our family vineyards, whilst studying a Bachelor of Business and Property.”
Meanwhile, Burke notes to The Australian “at my father’s request, I went to ag school”, while The Drinks Report wrote in 2009 that “Burke’s father planted the first vineyards nineteen years ago in 1989, which was between college years for Burke, on part of the estate that his family have been farming cattle for over a century.
“A few more acres were planted by his father while Burke was at college but when his father realised just how much work was involved and how complicated the business was he insisted Burke stayed home and took over the running of it.”
While Burke and Vivien’s only contact now is via legal letter, he says he remains on good terms with his brother.
“I still get on pretty well with Dru,” he reveals. “When I see him, he’ll say: ‘Come in for a beer’. We just can’t talk about the business.
“I want the next generation to have something and I believe I’m the one to secure our future.”
However, he received a setback in his case last month when judge Malcolm Blue in the Supreme Court said the role of the court was to place “itself, metaphorically, in (Trevor’s) armchair at the time of making the will” and try to “discern (his) true intentions” which he felt were to allow Vivian to stay on the land until her death. He also noted that Vivian, in her role as a family trustee, was not obliged to hand part of the contested property over to Burke.
“It’s disappointing but it may not be over. There could be more hearings to come,” said Burke.
He is involved in a separate dispute with Dru over caveats he has placed on some of his father’s old holdings; a dispute with his aunts over land once owned by his late grandmother, Emiline Reschke; and a dispute over a water licence.
Burke once revealed that a horrific car crash he endured in 2003 is what makes him “more driven”.
He told The Drinks Report his neighbour heard the crash from 2km away and drove there to find him standing in the road.
“He did not recognise me, I’d smashed my face up so much,” recalls Burke.
He also had two badly broken legs and four broken ribs.
“I was in hospital 10 days but I was determined to carry on with my life and so I started work on budgets the second day I was out – although I can’t have been thinking too clearly as, looking back on them, they didn’t make a lot of sense.
“My legs are pinned and wired, and I wore an eye patch for three and a half years. I’ve had 11 operations so far on my knee and seven on my face, six of which have been full ‘face-offs’ to realign all the bones. I’ve one more of those to go to get my face perfectly straight.
“Amazingly it hasn’t impinged on the company too much. It has impinged more on my personal life than work life.”
He decided the “set-back” would not stop him enjoying his life to the full. “I want to prove the doctors who said I’d never run again wrong – as a good friend of mine said ‘I’m not going to die wondering’.”
