The couple originally planted the vines for the winery, which faces Lake George, back in the late 90s' when it was "just a paddock".

"We started from scratch," says Lumbers.

"We were initially interested in the vineyard and winery next door [Lake George Winery], because I found they were making some very attractive wine, and there were very few people making wine of that kind in Australia at the time, that was with pinot noir grapes.

"I had recently returned from living in France and had become quite interested in French Burgundies, which are pinot noir [grapes], and was then struck by the quality of the pinot noir here."

Initially the plan was to purchase Lake George Winery, but the couple ended up with a plot of land subdivided from the winery. Since then, Lumbers and Caine have won numerous awards for their cool climate wines, and Lerida Estate has been a James Halliday Companion Five Star Winery since 2010.

Lumbers, who is about to turn 72, said the sale was purely down to the fact he thought it was time to retire.

The vineyard's new owner is Michael McRoberts, who is an accountant by profession.

"I wanted to invest in something I cared about and was passionate about, and I like drinking wine so that's how it came about," he says.

"I actually didn't know Jim before I started looking at the winery but I was actually a big fan of his pinot gris back in the days. I used to go through an absolute truck tonne of pinot gris from here and really enjoyed it. And when I found out it was for sale that was one of the things that attracted me to look."

McRoberts has kept virtually all of the staff, including Lumbers on a contract basis, and also brought on board operations manager Andrew McFadzean.

He says the new focus is on growing the winery and pushing the boundaries of quality.

"We're going to focus on the expansion from where we were at around 80 tonnes to around 300 tonnes crushed. So a large part of that is we'll be looking to renew our push into some varieties as well," he said.

"One of the things we are keen to focus on is we'll be looking at acquiring another vineyard in the Canberra region as well to kind of diversify out a bit climatically but also give us other varieties that we're keen to expand into."

There's also plans to refresh the interior of the cellar door, and the cellar door cafe is now open seven days with tasting plates and other nibbles available.