Gartbreck spat spills on to social media

Plans for Gartbreck malt whisky distillery on Islay have ground to a halt as a disagreement between Hunter Laing & Co and founder Jean Donnay plays out over Facebook.

A render of the planned Gartbreck Distillery on Islay

The public dispute concerns the ownership of land surrounding the proposed distillery, which won planning permission approval in 2014.

Independent bottler Hunter Laing, which is planning a separate Islay distillery build, entered into negotiations to acquire the Gartbreck project from Donnay, who runs Brittany’s Glann ar Mor Distillery, in early 2015, The Spirits Business understands.

Donnay has since backed out of the deal, he confirmed by telephone to The Spirits Business. The Facebook feud centres of a disagreement over a strip of land surrounding the Gartbreck site which had been earmarked for warehousing and car parking.

As part of the proposed deal Donnay claims that he “negotiated [terms for] the piece of land” with former owner, Islay Estates, “to be bought when it was needed”. It was agreed that Hunter Laing would buy the land once the deal was signed, Donnay claims.

In June 2016 a meeting was held to discuss the clauses of the distillery sale. Donnay says he rejected those terms ten days later. He says he then found out the land had been sold to Hunter Laing on the day of the meeting.

“The idea of buying the land was just to put a knife against my throat, to leave me in a situation where I would have no option but to accept the contract with the clauses that I didn’t want,” said Donnay. “Why else would they have bought the land two weeks before we were going to sign the deal and when it was around 80% sure?”

Donnay claims that he later approached Hunter Laing to buy the land, which he says is “of no use” to the company. “What I have offered Hunter Laing is the initial price of the land because they should never have bought it,” he added.

The Spirits Business approached Hunter Laing for comment, and business development director Scott Laing, referred the publication to a Facebook post on Donnay’s page.

“We were due to buy the Gartbreck project from Jean Donnay in July 2015,” the statement reads. “The negotiations had been completed and the only formality left was to actually sign the contract. A few days before the deal was to be signed however, Jean Donnay abruptly pulled out.

“To this day, he has never given us a reason for doing so. This left us in an extremely difficult position as we had invested over six figures in Gartbreck at this point, on the basis of a handshake and Jean Donnay’s good word. By and large, in the Scotch whisky industry a handshake is good enough.

“We had also purchased land from Islay Estates which Jean indicated he wanted for the project. We did this with the full knowledge and approval of Jean Donnay, given when we travelled to meet him in Brittany in May 2015. It seems he subsequently forgot about this.

“It is correct that we have in the past told M. Donnay that we do not wish to sell the land. This is not because we have a desire to block the development of another distillery, but because when M. Donnay demanded we sell him the land, the value he placed on it was far below our expenditure (at his behest) on the project. We have a business to run, and are not able to waste time negotiating with somebody who has already broken his word. It is worth pointing out however, that for a large period of time M. Donnay has asserted that he does not need our land to progress with the Gartbreck project.

“To be absolutely clear on our current position; we are prepared to sell the land if we receive a serious offer. There is no reason why Gartbreck cannot progress as far as we are concerned.”

Land ‘not for sale’

Donnay confirms he received a letter from Stuart Laing making it clear the land was not for sale. “Now they have changed positions to say, ‘we will consider offers from any prospective buyer’ – there couldn’t be any other prospective buyer than myself and they know it.”

Donnay claims he and his wife have lost approximately £100,000 from the project, a figure that includes planning permission costs, architect and legal fees, and travel to the site.

“Quite a few clauses in the contract were unacceptable for me,” he continued. “I don’t like the expression ‘pulling out of the deal’, because I just exercised my right to reject the offer. They could also have rejected the deal. I am no enemy of my interest. It was a very, very, very difficult decision because a lot of money was involved, a lot of work.”

Donnay says he later secured a deal in principle with another party to progress the distillery build in October 2016. He stressed that the decision to reject Hunter Laing’s offer “was in no way because I would prefer to go with another partner”.

At this stage an architect advised him that it would still be possible to complete the build, but after discussions third party was “not prepared to take the risk” without the additional land, Donnay says.

Situated by Lochindaal, just west of Bowmore and across the sea from Port Charlotte, Gartbreck Distillery was planning to produce 100% peated single malt whisky from at least two fire-heated copper pot stills.

The future of the distillery build remains unclear.