Wine chief role in new hands

At that time, the Australian wine industry was achieving record prices and expanding rapidly.

This gradually gave way to grape over-supply, plunging prices and drought and water restrictions.

On returning to the job in 2014, Mr Stone said prices were at all-time lows, but signs of recovery from a decade-long downturn became evident in 2016 and have since strengthened.

Mr Derrico is well-known in the winegrape sector having served as the inaugural chief executive officer of the grower-owned Vintage Traders Australia for eight years.

For the past four years he has held the positions of operations manager and financial controller for Nangiloc Colignan Farms.

Other changes to the leadership ranks were announced recently, with Peter Crisp elected as chair, replacing Brian Englefield, who retired from the position.