03301 Ark-Vol 2 September 5 2pm DL

This eJournal explores the history and making of Leeuwin Estate from 1969 to the present day. It also comprises vertical tasting reviews and highlights the collectability and longevity of its wines.

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK The Story of Australian Wine

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK The Story of Australian Wine VOLUME 2 Federation to the Modern Era 1901–1982

Andrew Caillard MW

The Australian Ark Project australianark.com

First published 2023 by

David Longfield Longueville Media Pty Ltd PO Box 205, Haberfield NSW 2045 Australia longmedia.com.au

Angus Hughson The Vintage Journal 41 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW 2037 Australia vintagejournal.co

Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) Australia, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the copyright owner, Andrew Caillard. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following volumes contain images of people who have died.

FRONTISPIECE: Retinue of Dionysus © Garry Shead/Copyright Agency, 2023 Private collection

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth

Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.

– W.B. Yeats, ‘A Drinking Song’, From The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1912)

CONTENTS

13. 1900s

| Federation

14. 1910s

| Nationhood Pain

15. 1914–1918 | World War 1

16. 1920s

| Bountiful Years

116

17. 1930–1938 | The Dead Dog Bounce

166

18. 1939–1945 | The Second World War

214

19. 1946–1949 | Return to Normality

234

20. 1950s

| Boom Times Again

276

Australia’s Surviving Old Vine Plantings

338

21. 1960s

| Swinging with the Times

358

22. 1970s

| Kaleidoscopic Years

436

23. 1980–1983 | Out of the Cold

530

XXX

INDEX

XII

1900s

CHAPTER 13 Federation

O n the 5th of July 1900, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (UK) was passed. Royal assent was given by Queen Victoria on the 9th of July 1900, and it was proclaimed on the 1st of January 1901 in Centennial Park, Sydney, 21 days before the Queen died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Thus ended the Victorian era and Australia’s colonial era. The new political union of the colonies, which created the modern nation of Australia, resulted in the end of intercolonial customs and duties, a trade boom, and a race to create better transport infrastructure between the Australian states. By 1900, over 4,000 kilometres of railway line had been constructed, connecting key centres. Colonial vineyards were able to take advantage of this efficient and low-cost transport. Thousands of hogsheads (casks of 66 imperial gallons, or 300 litres) were sent down to various ports by rail. During this time, most people travelled long distances by steam ships or trains. But horse and coach still taxied people and goods locally. Postal, telegraphic, and telephone services became the responsibility of the new federal government. South Australian companies began to expand their vineyards in response to new market demand, leading to rapid market dominance across the country. At this time, the population of Adelaide and its environs was 180,825. The newly formed State of South Australia comprised around 363,000 people, and the total population of Australia was nearing 3.8 million. South Australian vignerons were particularly advantaged by the end of intercolonial customs duties and tariffs and aided by state subsidies. Château Tanunda, Thomas Hardy, and Penfolds

Federation Arch in Martin Place, Sydney, New South Wales, 1901. [Courtesy: Museum of Australian Democracy] The Swearing-in Ceremony, Centennial Park, Inauguration of the Australian Commonwealth, Sydney, 1 January 1901. [SLNSW PXD 760]

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

Lindeman’s Ben Ean Winery, Pokolbin, Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales in the early 1900s. [FL3580531]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

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CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

1900 Château Tanunda workman, Barossa Valley South Australia ca 1900. [Château Tanunda Collection]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

established commercial offices and warehouses in Sydney. Seppelt set up in Brisbane and Freemantle. South Australian wine became increasingly popular in the eastern states. Hans Irvine, from Great Western Victoria, also set up offices in Sydney. Conversely, Federation was a disaster for Hunter Valley vignerons, who experienced dwindling sales and profitability. Many of the larger producers also lobbied against small wineries investing in distillation equipment, forcing small family holdings to sell their crops. Many growers began to pull out their vineyards and concentrate on other activities, including dairying. At Federation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people found themselves excluded from many rights of Australian citizenship, including the right to vote. The new Constitution, embedded with colonial paternalism, stated that ‘Aboriginal People will not be counted in the census,’ and ‘the Commonwealth has the power to make laws relating to any race of people in Australia with the exception of Aborigines’. Aside from the Northern Territory, Aboriginal affairs were administered by the states. Many jurisdictions prohibited the sale of wine and other alcohol to Aboriginal people, but they were permitted to work in vineyards to help gather grapes. Until machine harvesting, the grape harvest required large teams of pickers. Many farms had difficulty finding seasonal workers. While it was relatively uncommon at Federation, there was increasing demand and incentives for seasonal workers, especially in the expanding Riverland, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area and remote regions.

Squatters Arms Hotel, Port Road Thebarton, near Adelaide, South Australia ca 1900. [Yalumba Collection]

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Adelaide Observer article Inspector of Vineyards Mr. Henry Lowcay, the newly appointed Inspector of Vineyards under the Phylloxera Act, is an Englishman by birth, but his father, being a Professor of the University of France, and also of the ‘Ecole d'Application du Genie Maritime’ (School of Naval Architecture), the Inspector always resided in France, and was educated there. After leaving College he followed viticultural pursuits, and also made a special study of the phylloxera insect in many of the affected districts of France. At the beginning of 1888 the Cape Government appointed Mr Lowcay to the position of Inspector of Phylloxera, and up to the end of 1890 lie was engaged in the eradication of the disease. From 1890 to 1896 he was Head Inspector in charge of the Vineyards of the Cape Peninsula, and of the noted district of Constantia. The testimonials he received from the Government testify to the skill which he displayed in the many technicalities of his profession, and the energy and hearty willingness with which he worked, and an extract from one handed to him by the ‘Constantia Association’ refers in a complimentary manner to the tact Mr. Lowcay displayed during the performance of his duties. Mr Lowcay’s instructions are to proceed immediately with the inspection of all the vineyards in the ‘Central District’, as defined in the Phylloxera Act, 1899, and already he has seen a large number of vineyards along the Torrens. [ Adelaide Observer SA: 1843–1904]

… [T]he kangaroo, the emu have disappeared; in their place are those foolish gifts of the white man to the bush – the rabbit and the fox. The brush fence is no more; the blackwoods of which he so often speaks are but a faded glory before the clearing axe. – GK Soward, The Lone Hand , vol. 6, 1901

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

This is credited by the State Library of South Australia as ‘Boys and men at Brookside vineyards, 1900, Tranmere’ [SLSA B-60821] . But many of these workers also helped out with the vintage at Auldana and Penfolds. Front Row (l-r). W Threadgold, I Cosgrove, F Kranz, R Gibbs, J Amos, T Amos, I Clayton, H Walker. Back Row (l-r). J Tipper, J Vial, A Air, F Nichols, N Brooks, J Wickens. Far Back, I Donlon. Norman Walker, Hurtle Walker’s son recalled ‘The wine industry was in its infancy in those years and in Australia the older people battled and did what they could as there was very little labour around then. My father would go through this photograph with me because when the first World War broke out, most of these children were of age to go to War, and I think six or eight of them were killed.’ [ The Valiant Vigneron , Merrily Hallsworth, 2014]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

was soon purchased by John Wilkinson of Coolalta, but that ownership did not last for long. In 1903, Edward Capper acquired the valuable Coolalta estate and renamed it Catawba after the American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1857 poem ‘Catawba Wine’. The Wilkinson family remained the largest vineyard owners in the region with their properties Maluna, Côte d’Or, Mangerton, and Oakdale, but this acquisition foreshadowed further changes in the Hunter Valley. Over the next 30 years, Penfolds expanded at an extraordinary pace. In New South Wales, it acquired new cellars in Sydney and purchased the prized Dalwood vineyards in 1904. Eight years later, Penfolds bought the colonial Minchinbury Vineyards and Winery at Rooty Hill, near the Penrith and Parramatta districts of Sydney, a magnificent property first farmed by Captain William Minchin in 1819. (To further highlight these changes, Lindeman’s would acquire the Catawba vineyard from the Capper family in 1915.) In 1901, there were still great hopes for a Queensland wine industry, even though the newly federated Australia brought new concerns and anxieties. Without protection, the local markets were now open to competition with wines from the southern colonies. There was a belief that wineries would need to invest in newer technologies and equipment, including crushers and stalkers, refrigerating apparatus,

Another political alliance took place soon after Federation. With the Penfold family having no male heir, the Hyland family adopted the surname ‘Penfold Hyland’ in 1905 to preserve continuity of the Penfold name. Thomas and Georgina (née Penfold) Hyland’s sons, Frank Astor Penfold Hyland (1872–1948) and Herbert Leslie (1875–1940) were each educated in Australia and England. Frank entered the Penfolds business in 1892, and after a stint in Europe studying winemaking methods and buying machinery and equipment, he established cellars in Sydney in 1901 to take advantage of the post-Federation trade boom. Herbert Leslie Penfold Hyland took over management of the South Australian cellars and vineyards in 1905. Meanwhile, John Wyndham of Dalwood vineyards in the Hunter Valley died in 1901, and the property

Herbert Leslie Penfold-Hyland, a son of Thomas Hyland and Mary Penfold was a director of Penfolds and a successful amateur golf player winning the South Australian Amateur Golf Competition in 1905 and 1906. [Penfold s ’ Collection]

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and pasteurisers. Wineries would need to become factories ‘with proper appliances’, and vignerons would be required to adapt to market conditions by growing or grafting the best varieties. The Queensland Department of Agriculture was already promoting change and supplying cuttings of finer grape varieties. A five-acre nursery vineyard was planted at Gatton Agricultural College to supply the local wine industry with the best varieties of French, Spanish, and Portuguese varieties. Nonetheless, the Queensland wine industry was severely challenged by cheaper and better wines from South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales. Its survival would be dependent on higher quality and a loyal local market. An estimated 30,000 people were dependent on the Victorian wine industry at the turn of the century. Melbourne was a bustling city, with about 150 listed wine and spirit merchants. In 1905, the Viticultural Society was established, which eventually included many of the members of the Central Wine Association, which had been formed in 1891 to furnish wine judges for the Melbourne Show. Among them were the vigneron Hans Irvine, who was appointed president, and wine broker John Wilson Bear, whose family owned Château Tahbilk. One of the society’s first tasks was to recommend a new state viticulturalist. The incumbent, Malcolm Burney, had only lasted about a year, resigning after taking up a position with Peter Bond Burgoyne, who had established a thriving export market in the United Kingdom. By the early 1900s, anxieties about wine stability and spoilage promoted improved hygiene in wineries, including the steam cleaning of barrels and the use of sulphur to protect wine from spoilage. The addition of tartaric acid to achieve stability and wine was not Practice yet. When the pH scale (the negative logarithm of hydrogen ion concentration) was introduced by Danish scientist, Soren Sorensen of Carlsberg Laboratories in 1909, it opened up a better understanding of the composition of beer, wine, and other liquids, especially after the introduction of the pH meter in 1934. Acetic spoilage, in which wine becomes

Château Tanunda Winery, Barossa Valley, South Australia ca 1900. [Château Tanunda Collection]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

vinegar, was the most common problem. Some winemakers were also bothered by their wines going through secondary fermentation. Previously, it could be prevented by using sulphur matches. At the turn of the century, malolactic fermentation was still little understood. The invention of a Salvator, or pasteurising machine, promised to prevent its occurrence. Wine was rapidly heated to around 140–160°F before being cooled down. A demonstration of the Salvator was made at Fairfield Cellars in 1904 by Victoria’s short-lived State Viticulturalist Malcolm Burney. Although reported as a great success, there were wider concerns about the effects of heat on wine. Observers knew already that pasteurisation ‘partly destroyed the bouquet and the fine flavour of good wine’. Even by the 1850s, a secondary fermentation was expected, and winemakers knew that leaving the wine properly topped up in barrels and bunged after primary fermentation would protect it from acetic spoilage and promote secondary fermentation. This whole process was described by William Macarthur in his letter XV entitled ‘Secondary Fermentation’. Although pasteurisation machines were regularly advertised, the process, unsurprisingly, did not catch on. . . . The use of colonial wine to christen Men of War (warships) became a more frequent custom by early 1901. A correspondent of the London Times had observed that countless Royal Navy ships had been constructed using British materials or labour but were sent to water and named with a bottle of wine that had ‘not been a product of Britain or of the British Empire’. According to Walter Burroughs, editor of the UK’s Naval Historical Review, it had been Sir John Cockburn, agent- general of South Australia, who had successfully lobbied the Admiralty ‘to break the monopoly of French wine in launching HM ships in favour of Empire wines from South Africa and Australia’. It was noted by the Adelaide Register that ‘such concessions on the part of the mother country, though trivial in themselves, and of but little significance from a commercial point of view … have a distinct value of their own as a matter of sentiment and from a graceful recognition of the unity of the empire, which cannot fail to be fully appreciated in our colonies’. Notwithstanding that Australia had become a federation of states on the 1st of January 1901, just some days earlier, the bonds with Britain were still highly valued. According to the Adelaide Register , the wine used at the launch of the battleship HMS Russell on the 19th of February 1901 was ‘drawn from a case of South Australian produce presented to the Admiralty by Sir John Cockburn’. On the 10th of February 1906, the new heavily armoured battleship HMS Dreadnought was also launched with a bottle of Australian wine. . . .

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

Yalumba Wines ‘To the Front’ – Advertising, ca 1899–1900 Piper George Findlater of the British Army’s Gordon Highlanders was awarded the Victoria Cross for his extreme bravery at the October 1897 storming of the Darghai Heights (present-day Pakistan), during the upheavals of the northwestern front of British India. Findlater’s colourful story captured the imagination of the British Empire and his reputation of fortitude was harnessed by Yalumba for its advertising campaign.

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

Houghton’s sailing boat, Swan River, Western Australia 1901. [Houghton Collection]

Sevenhill Winery, Clare Valley South Australia 1900. [SLSA B-19185 and B-19184]

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Wendouree Winery, Clare Valley, South Australia, ca 1900.

Horse drawn wagons lining up in the yard at the Stanley Wine Company premises in the Clare Valley, South Australia. [SLSA B-19294]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

Extracts from the diary of Leo Buring, 1900. [SLSA BRG-248-1, Vol 1-3-4 and Vol 1-55-56]

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CIRCA 1901 PB BURGOYNE TINTARA BURGUNDY South Australia

This wine brand epitomised the strength of the Australian burgundy market in the UK. By Federation, PB Burgoyne had established a remarkable network of growers, including Hardy’s, Reynella, Wirra Wirra, and Seppelt in South Australia. He was also about to develop the Mount Ophir Winery in Rutherglen, Victoria, which opened in 1903, with vigneron Thomas Hardy as the guest speaker. By the 1890s, Burgoyne had secured a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria, which was extended during the reigns of King Edward VII (he promoted the business as ‘Growers to the King’), King George V, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II. In 1901, 736,754 gallons of Australian wine were imported into the UK, and this increased to 992,854 gallons in 1903. This massive increase of 256,000 gallons corresponded to a comparable decline in French wine. Burgoyne believed that the public preferred ‘the fuller bodied, generous burgundies produced under the Australian sun over the thinner and colder wines of the Continent’. This was also emphasised in statements to the South Australian wine industry. He believed that vignerons could produce wines with a ‘grapeness – unknown to the continent’. (This character, regarded as pure fruit definition, was rediscovered during the 1980s.) Meanwhile, in the UK, the French were greatly affected by Australian competition. As noted in The Advertiser’s ‘Chronicle’ on the 19th of February 1903, it was ‘stated by the trade that Australia alone provides one-fourth as much wine for the British Market as do the combined departments of Gironde (Bordeaux) and Côte-d’Or (Burgundy)’. PB Burgoyne’s Harvest Burgundy, marketed as ‘a generous wine of absolute purity’ and a ‘produce of pure Empire’s Vineyards’, was derived from Australian and South African vineyards and was very successful in the UK market, but it was also available in other countries, including India.

A postcard promoting the Tintara brand from P B Burgoyne & Co., ca 1910. By 1910 the Tintara brand was drawing wine from Rutherglen as well. [NMA 1986.0117.3186]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

At the time of Federation in 1901, the Coonawarra Fruit Colony comprised 700 acres of orchards and vineyards, roughly half of each. The plantings primarily consisted of shiraz (180 acres), cabernet sauvignon (120 acres), and malbec (30 acres). There were also minor plantings of pinot noir. Under the guidance of Ewen McBain, the Coonawarra Cellars was extended to increase storage capacity substantially. The 1901 vintage was a bumper crop. All the growers received profitable prices for their grapes, although John Riddoch’s low-yielding pinot noir plantings were unsuccessful and mostly grubbed up. In the same year, Ewen McBain employed the 14-year-old Bill Redman, who had arrived in the region with his 16-year-old brother, Dick. Although Dick was laid off after the picking season, Bill was kept on with full board and lodging for £1 a week, which represented 66 working hours. Although unforeseen, this arrangement, strict working regime, and experience would enable Coonawarra’s wine tradition to carry on through the worst of times. The Coonawarra Fruit Colony was a thriving agricultural community with a significant grape harvest. At John Riddoch’s cellars, ‘altogether 415 tons of grapes were put through for about 64,000 gallons of wine’ for the 1902 vintage. But a labour shortage hampered progress after Federation. The abolishment of intercolonial customs and duties also disadvantaged the community of Coonawarra Blockers, leaving the region vulnerable to economic crisis. Although competition from more established producers was blamed, isolation and over- production were also likely culprits. At around the same time, French viticulturalist Pierre Viala and entrepreneur Victor Vermorel began their great ampelographic exploration of all the known grape varieties around the world. This massive task took the two authors, and around 70 others, nearly 10 years to complete. The 1910 first edition of Ampélographie: traité général de viticulture , published by Masson et Cie, Paris, and published between 1901 and 1910, is a magnum opus comprising seven volumes, including 500 coloured lithographic plates and over 900 engraved plates or illustrations. The release of these seven volumes played an influential role in encouraging vignerons and academics to establish the true identity of grape varieties. In Australia, local names for grape varieties were already known to be ‘hopelessly incorrect’, the Ampélographie noted, as reported in The Advertiser on the 18th of June 1924. In 1919, there was an attempt to create a standardisation of grape variety nomenclature around Australia, but there was difficulty in moving grapevine material because of the various state phylloxera Acts and lack of collaborative effort. Despite this, by the early 1920s, it was generally known that Shepherd’s riesling and Hunter River riesling were local names for semillon. Other local names, including blue imperial and black prince, were already known to be cinsault, a grape variety from southern France.

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Black Portugal, also known as the Oporto grape, was probably tinta amarela from the Douro (according to François de Castella in 1942), but inaccuracies in cataloguing were an Australian speciality. There are sources that suggest that some black Portugal plantings could have been carignan or even mataro. Mataro, the Spanish synonym for mourvèdre, and therefore an acceptable Australian name as well, was also known as esparte in Victoria and lambruscat in New South Wales. The Australian idiosyncrasy of calling syrah ‘shiraz’ and cabernet sauvignon ‘carbonet’, or ‘carbenet’, is steeped in an age of non-standardisation and difficulty in pronouncing the French language. Auldana Vineyards also continued to prosper throughout the Australian Commonwealth. A special commissioner from the Adelaide Chronicle , in 1909, said:

From a spectacular point of view there are few places more impressive than Auldana in full working order during the crushing season. From the delivery of grapes in the Old World style per bullock-dray, through the various stages of fermentation and treatment, to a walk below ground along the bottle-lined corridors hewn out of limestone, until one emerges upon the scene of champagne-making in its many processes, and winds up with a banquet in the hall of a thousand casks, no better effect could be stage managed to afford a glimpse of another world. –––––– . . .

Turn-of-the-century Auldana Cellars St Henri clarets were beautifully packaged in Bordeaux-type bottles with unique tamper-proof riveted capsules. Historian and vigneron John Wilson of Wilson Vineyard in the Clare Valley believed that St Henri was the first ‘trade-named’ wine in Australia. By Federation, the map of the Barossa had also changed dramatically, with a patchwork of vineyards across the valley floor and a substantial increase in production. Although less impactful than McLaren Vale and the Adelaide region, the Barossa soon became a regional powerhouse, thanks to the federation of Australian colonies in 1901, a highly motivated Lutheran population, and increasing domestic and export markets. B Seppelt & Sons, at Seppeltsfield in the Barossa Valley, released its first Para tawny ports in 1902 to take advantage of the new tax-free interstate trade. Described as ‘the showplace of Australia’, the thriving winery complex, with its remarkable gravity flow fermentation house built into the side of a hill, crushed 3,169 tons of grapes that year. One journalist proclaimed in the Kapunda Herald in November 1905: ‘The magnitude of the works and the quantity and quality of wines, spirits and vinegars produced, is unequalled in Australasia’.

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

Commonwealth Celebrations, Collins Street, Melbourne Victoria, 1901. [SLNSW FL11881350]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – A History of Wine | 1900–1982

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

The Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia , 9th May 1901, by Tom Roberts, ca 1901–3. [Royal Collection Trust/© His Majesty King Charles III 2023, RCIN 407587 ]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

Scene at Irvine’s vineyard, Great Western, Victoria with barrels of wine, 1905. [Mr Charles Pierlot, Great Western, Victorian Collections]

When ailing vigneron Samuel McWilliam died in 1902, he stipulated that his Sunnyside Vineyard should be leased for three years after his death, with the rent being shared equally over those three years between his four daughters. In 1903, Eliza Jane McWilliam, aged 37, and two of her three sisters, Rose May and Mary, returned to Corowa and took over the running of the vineyard and winery in time for the 1903 vintage. According to Sydney’s Evening News , the growing season had been marked by hot scorching winds in early December that shrivelled the grapes, and the McWilliams had only mustered 2,000 gallons from 60 acres, and another woman, Mrs Meyer, had yielded ‘practically nil’. Many vignerons in the area had picked their fruit and made wine at a loss. The following year, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that ‘[c]lose to Corowa, Miss McWilliam manages an 80-acre vineyard on behalf of her sisters and herself. The vineyard, established by the late Mr McWilliam, is in good condition and Miss McWilliam’s first year of office has been signalised by a very full vintage. The vintage was put through in good style and Miss McWilliam had no trouble with the numerous people employed. She engaged boys at 18s per week and found them excellent pickers and most reliable. The wines are of the full-bodied, sweet kinds and the manageress is evidently capable of keeping up the reputation of the cellars.’

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In August of the same year, Eliza won first place for a sweet white wine at the Corowa Agricultural and Horticultural Show. But in July 1905, under the conditions of their father’s will, the vineyard was sold at auction and purchased by Eliza’s brother, John James McWilliam, who by this time had fully established his Mark View vineyard and winery at Junee. The Sunnyside Vineyard was leased out initially and then sold in August 1911 to Mssrs WA Taylor and RG Henderson for £2,560. According to vigneron Doug McWilliam, the three sisters (without their elder sister, Isabelle) moved to Christchurch, New Zealand. Eliza McWilliam never married and eventually returned to Sydney, where she died in 1919 aged 53. This story highlights the difficulties for women working in the wine industry at the turn of the century. Male heirs enjoyed the trappings of inheritance, while women struggled to make ends meet, especially when not married. In addition, superstitious beliefs and conventions of the time prevented many women from working in wineries. Vineyards and wineries run by women, usually widows, were something of a novelty in the early 1900s; however, in newly federated Australia, as in the United Kingdom and the United States, there was a move for change. Women were seeing increased political representation, and the growing suffragette movement was a sign of things to come. The Coonawarra Fruit Colony began to fail in the early 1900s, despite the bumper crop in 1901. Although production steadily increased during the 1900s, the seeds of its demise were already sown by the federation of Australian colonies in January 1901. There is some irony in this because John Riddoch believed that federation would improve the living standards and opportunities for South Australia’s southeast. The removal of intercolonial trade barriers exposed Coonawarra to severe competition in Australia from established wine regions and wine producers. Heavily reliant on export markets and exposed to increasing preference for fortified wines, especially after World War I, Coonawarra’s fortunes began to decline. While the fruit colony was not overly exposed to the disastrous Federation Drought (1895–1903) because of the huge underground basin of artesian water, the project’s momentum began to slow down. W Catton Grasby had already identified the Coonawarra Fruit Colony’s Achilles heel. In 1899, he observed that John Riddoch’s grand scheme would rely heavily on his ‘ample capital’ and inferred that without it, the purchase of wine and making of wine would be at risk. Although the 1903 vintage had increased to 540 tons (81,000 gallons), and in 1909, the winery had processed 493 tons (70,000 gallons), sales were not matched with production. Grape prices had declined as well. By this time, prices had dropped from £7.10/ton (cabernet sauvignon) and £4.10/ton (shiraz) to just £3 per ton for both in 1909 if the crop could be sold. According to James Halliday, some were selling grapes for as little as 15s a ton – or even feeding them to pigs.

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

The uncertainty surrounding wine production in the early 1900s saw many growers convert, by grafting, their vineyards partially or totally over to Zante currants for the dried fruit market. By 1909, the Clare Valley, including Watervale and Auburn, had around 981 acres of Zante currant plantings compared with around 240 acres in 1900. The Barossa’s plantings had gone from 95 acres to 848 acres in the same period. Penfolds, on the other hand, was in an acquisitive mode, buying land and vineyards in McLaren Vale and later building a winery between 1904 and 1912. D & J Fowler’s Kalimna Vineyard, named for its beautiful view, which had been planted on Moppa scrubland 20 years earlier in 1888, was now planted out to around 326 acres, of which 200 acres comprised shiraz, cabernet, and malbec to make into burgundy wine for the export market. The winery, built in 1896 and set into the side of a hill, with a storage capacity of 250,000 gallons, also bought fruit from local growers and vinified the harvest in 32 water-cooled (with copper-coiled pipes) fermentation tanks. That same year, George Swan Fowler commissioned to have a riverboat steamer built for both work and private use, but he died that year and never enjoyed it. The MV Marion, recognised as one of the Murray River’s iconic steamships, ended up being owned by another irrigation and wine pioneer, Ben Chaffey, and would later be restored in the 1990s by Steam Age enthusiasts, including vigneron Robert O’Callaghan. But in 1904, the Barossa Valley’s Kalimna Vineyard, managed for six years by William Salter, had begun to struggle with slowing export orders, although it was still exporting wine to PB Burgoyne and Co. The story goes that, in 1907, a flock of starlings flew over a car belonging to vigneron R Russell of Katunga, who was driving Burgoyne and his son Alan to various wineries in McLaren Vale. Russell saw them overhead and remarked, ‘They get our profits’. The Wine King, as Peter Bond Burgoyne was called, could not resist the opening and observed, with a smile, ‘Oh, I thought Burgoyne got them’. By this time, the populations of starlings and foxes in McLaren Vale had become extremely problematic. Oak was used for both the maturation and transportation of wine. Although new-oak-aged wine is today seen as a symbol of quality, winemakers then saw the flavour of new oak in wine as an impairment. In 1904, the Melbourne Leader’s horticultural correspondent revealed the steps taken at Peter Burgoyne’s new Mount Ophir Winery in Rutherglen:

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New oak hogsheads, which have been seasoned by holding wine of the first making, are used for the export trade, and it is very important that the product should not be depreciated by being put into inferior or unsuitable casks. Unseasoned new casks give much of the wood flavour to the wine, and unsound casks, with bulged staves, cracked heads or titholes, would be rejected by shipping companies. In preparing the casks they are kept filled with water for three days; a second filling of water stands in them for another day, and they are rinsed with a third water, containing a little sulphuric acid. They are next washed out with a solution of caustic soda, and put upon by steam jets from the boiler, after which the hoops are driven and the casks washed out with wine and lightly sulphured. When the sulphur fumes have had time to escape, the hogsheads are filled with wine for shipment. –––––– . . .

Château Reynella was a thriving wine business by the turn of the century. After John Reynell’s death in 1873, Walter Reynell took over the farm but remained as a manager and then director (1883) of Elder Smith and Co until his retirement in 1910. Walter Reynell also became the superintendent director of Château Tanunda in 1902 and was an investor in other agricultural activities. For instance, he was a co-owner of the vast Tolarno Station founded by brothers William and Ross Reid on the Darling River near Menindie. Walter Reynell’s daughter Lucy married Ross Reid around 1868.

Walter Reynell (seated) with family at Reynella, Southern Vales South Australia (Carew Reynell, standing 2nd to the left), 1906. [SLSA B-58415]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

Tolarno Station was a Merino grazing property of over 1.1 million acres and carrying 300,000 sheep. The wool clip had been carried by inland river steamers to Adelaide and exported mainly to the UK, but the collapse of the Union Bank in 1892 resulted in the end of that venture. Then, just a few years later, the price of wool dropped, and Tolarno Station was crippled by a shearer’s strike. Tough times followed with the Federation Drought. A letter to my grandmother Lydia Reynell, dated the 18th of June 1961, from her mother, May, the wife of Carew Reynell, however, reveals an interesting family recollection. She had been researching the Reynell family history, which, according to her, dated back to as early as 1191. She wrote, ‘Your great grandfather – John, was already settled at Reynella in 1842. The first vineyard he planted was called East Ogwell – & the old underground cellars was actually built in 1838.’ [This is incorrect.] ‘I have always understood that John Reynell planted some olives and almonds, really to demonstrate to early settlers what could be profitably grown in South Australia. He had travelled a good deal & was struck by the likeness of the climate here to that of the Mediterranean countries. I don’t think he thought specially about winemaking. All farmers in the Mediterranean countries [she is referring to the Riviera etc.] always have their own cellars – making their own wines & olive oil and growing almonds, oranges, etc. The wine business came about because your grandfather [Walter Reynell] had sheep stations in partnership with Ian Thomas’s grandfather [Ross Reid] . They both lost very heavily, about 1900, expanded – the making of wine because of this. He always had as many sheep as possible here & Mr [Colin] Haselgrove carries in the idea in a small way. A good deal of the estate had to be sold in 1930. It used to stretch right down to St Hallett’s Cove – now a tremendous lot of oil is being mined. Can’t remember just what the company is, but at least some of the land belonged to the original Reynell here. We used to go down for picnics in the little phaeton I had. It was a lovely spot with large rocks running into the sea. I’ve not seen it for years, but it must be very different now & the whole coast is transformed.’ By around 1903, Walter Reynell’s son Carew took over the management of the family wine business. From around 1862 to 1908, the vineyards expanded from 15 acres to 350 acres, mostly undertaken by Walter and Carew. The mixed farm with its pedigree stud also won prizes for its Reynella Shropshire Rams at the Adelaide Show in 1906. From around that time, Carew Reynell increased brandy production and developed a hospital brandy that became one of the leading brands of the day. This led to new investments in brandy stills, equipment, and more vineyard plantings. But when World War I intervened, the Reynell family fortunes began to teeter. John Alexander Seeck, from present-day Latvia, joined Walter Reynell & Sons as the company wine expert/oenologist around 1906 and worked there for

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

A ca 1906 photograph of a young boy carrying four enormous bunches of winegrapes weighing a total of 46lbs (nearly 21 kgs). A son of Auldana’s vineyard manager, Nicholas Brooks. A similar and more famous picture is used for advertising Auldana Wines with barrels of St Henry Claret and Invalid Port in the background and beneath, the slogan ‘The Delight of Connoisseurs’. The boy and grape image would become a well-known symbol of the Auldana brand.story captured the imagination of the British Empire and his reputation of fortitude was harnessed by Yalumba for its advertising campaign.

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

25 years. He was a Geisenheim-trained winemaker (around 1883) of considerable experience, having worked in France, Germany, and Spain. He came to Australia in 1888, where he first worked for the Murray Valley Vineyards, in Albury, alongside other German immigrants to the region. After being discovered by Thomas Hardy on one of his trips to New South Wales, he was persuaded to join Thomas Hardy & Sons in Adelaide to improve wine quality, where he worked for four years. Although he returned to Russia in 1905 to visit his family, by 1917, the Russian Revolution and social foment saw that country’s destruction. By the late 1930s, all he had remaining was one sister. Seeck was a highly regarded technical winemaker and wine judge. He also worked at the same time with Hamilton Ewell in the late 1930s and with Syd Hamilton, where he introduced mechanical refrigeration using ammonia and brine tanks to winemaking. In Western Australia, Mr Ferguson of Houghton’s advertised his wines as ‘guaranteed to be bottled perfectly unadulterated from the wood, and is specially recommended for the use of invalids’. For many years, wine and brandy had been dispensed by doctors and pharmacists to improve the health of patients. Invalid ports and hospital brandy were extensively marketed around Australia to encourage consumption. Penfolds, Château Tanunda, Seppelt, Thomas Hardy & Sons, and Yalumba were also involved in the distribution of these wine types throughout Australia. In 1904, and in response to Federation and the freeing up of intercolonial duties, Penfolds moved its offices to 197 Pitt Street, Sydney, and shortly afterwards bought George Wyndham’s original Dalwood vineyards at Branxton in the Hunter Valley. Medical practitioners around Australia were particularly interested in the properties of wine as restorative or tonic for the sick. The vigneron and distinguished surgeon Dr Thomas Fiaschi (despite having been excommunicated by the church), was a strong advocate of its use in medicine. He believed that wine was a source of calcium, iron, and manganese. At a lecture to members of the Australasian Trained Nurses Association on ‘the various wines used in sickness and convalescence’ in 1906, Dr Fiaschi said that claret acted as a ‘tonic and a reconstituant’ and was ‘a valuable aid to digestion’. Although burgundy ‘favoured the development of gout’, he believed it was more to do with lifestyle, as the wine was also associated with the wealthy classes. Hocks ‘could be given in all cases of weakness and convalescence, gout or rheumatism’. Aside from its restorative powers, fortified wine was ‘a rapidly diffusible stimulant in acute diseases, such as fevers, septicaemia and pneumonia’. In 1905, one Saturday afternoon, the Bankside winery, built by Thomas Hardy, went up in flames. When the horse-drawn fire pumps arrived on the

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

scene, the firemen could not get enough water pressure to douse the fire, and so, according to wine writer Robert Mayne, they tried pumping port into the fire, with disastrous results. . . . By the early 1900s, Peter Bond Burgoyne was very active in Victoria and invested hugely in the Rutherglen area. In 1903, he purchased the Mount Ophir Estate, a mixed farm, from Eisemann and Gleeson and immediately set about building the most advanced winery of its time. With ambitions to build a thriving export market, the business was also exposed to the devastating effects of phylloxera and the mishandling of the crisis by the Victorian government’s agricultural department. The winery was planning to plant half a million grafted vines in 1905 and encourage small producers to abandon winemaking and concentrate on contract grape growing. According to Thomas Hardy’s speech at the opening of the winery, the profile of Australian wine in the UK market was immense, with prominent advertising at almost every railway station. . . .

Lunch for the Right Hon. RJ Seddon at Auldana Winery, Magill South Australia 1906. Edmund Mazure is sitting at the head of the table looking back at the camera. [SLSA B-60831]

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

MOUNT OPHIR A labour-saving winery and cellars. Based on a Californian design. Architect – Mr EC Macnight – Builder John Burns

Black Grapes (primarily shiraz and malbec)

£4 to £4.10 per ton

Minimum 14° Baumé

Intake 3yr Contracts with growers

Carbinet

£5 to £5.10 per ton

Minimum 14° Baumé

WINERY

Water catchment

Underground cemented tanks – largest 45,000 gallons

Cool water used to control temperatures of fermenting musts Can process roughly 30 tons per working day Puts through at a rapid rate while rejecting any stalks escaping from the stemmer Temperature controlled with copper-coiled or galvanised iron piping

Extensive roofing

Grape Receival

Tipped by gravity into stemmer

Crushing House 35ft x 15ft

Bagshaw & Sons Adelaide Pump

A high force based on the French-designed ‘Coq’ principle

Occupied by tiers of rectangular fermenting vats Californian wine pumps Small Steam Engine

Each Vat – with false heads (header boards) has a capacity of 2,000 gallons – lined with polished cement Operated by overhead eccentrics on horizontal shaft Steam conveyed in a pipe from a large boiler house Taking up no more room than an ordinary stemmer

Rack and Returns/Pumping over

Rope belting used throughout

Steam-powered

Skins placed in a hopper; perforated cylinder with Archimedes screw working within it; juice extracted and a core of solid dry marc ejected

Fermenting Cellar 115ft x 47ft

Mabille Continuous Press

Cleaning Enclosure

Steam-powered cleaning facility to clean false heads, coolers and other appliances Wine transferred (racked) to large casks in maturation cellar

French-designed high-pressure pumps

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

Stocked with tiers of large casks

Outer tiers – 1,200-gallon casks

Wine maturation. All casks are sitting on white-washed stillage of brick and cement capped by red gum studs

Maturation Cellar 125ft x 46ft

Under tiers – 500–1,000 gallons

Large Blending Tank of brick and polished cement

Two levels

Stored with 1,200-gallon casks

Wine maturation. All casks are sitting on white-washed stillage of brick and cement capped by red gum studs

Old Cellar

Stocked with new hogsheads

Cleaning and preparation of export hogsheads (American oak) Mostly red ‘Burgundy’ wine with 19 months age including Ophir Rich ‘Harvest Burgundy’ for lighter reds ‘White Harvest Burgundy’ for white wines Wines are blended – roughly 1/3 cabernet, 1/3 shiraz and 1/3 malbec and distributed to British Public under ‘attractive brands’ and liberal advertising

Outer Shed

Considered the best age for export by sea to England

Wine

London Cellars

South Africa Special label ‘Loyal Australia’ Adapted from a report in the Melbourne Leader, Saturday, 13th of February 1904, p. 9

THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982

Mt Ophir Cellars Burgoyne & Co., Rutherglen, Victoria ca 1900s. [All Saints Collection]

PB Burgoyne and Co was well established in London by 1904. They were trading as ‘Growers to the King’ by special warrant and specialised in Australian wine growers. Based at Downgate Street, London, they offered the wine trade a bewildering array of Australian wines, including Ruby Wines: Oomoo Burgundy, Harvest Burgundy, Branxton Cabernet Claret, Kangaroo Burgundy, Branxton Burgundy, Tintara, Mount Ophir Vineyard (grown on ferruginous soil), Singleton Hermitage, and very superior old Coomaree Cabinet Burgundy, and Amber Wines: White Harvest Burgundy, Oomoo Chablis, Chasselas, Singleton Riesling, Singleton Hermitage, Highercombe Amber, Tokay Imperatrice, Muscat of Alexandria, and very old superior Coomaree Amber Cabinet Riesling. As the Australian wine trade improved further in Great Britain, a new treaty known as the Entente Cordiale (1904) ushered in a new era of cooperation and friendship between Britain and France and their respective colonial aspirations. This relationship would endure and promote closer trade with French wine regions, especially Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne. Nonetheless, Australian wine was increasingly enjoyed by the British middle class. The long arm of Peter Bond Burgoyne reached all corners of South Australia, Rutherglen, and the Hunter Valley’s wine industry. It was also firmly gripped onto the UK wine trade. On receiving hogsheads from Australia, PB Burgoyne assessed every barrel. Sometimes consignments were rejected and offered on behalf of the growers to auction. In one notable legal case in 1903, wine merchants Arthur Godfree & Co purchased bulk ‘Australian Red Wine’ from auctioneers W and T Restell and then marketed the wine as ‘Burgoyne’s Superior Australian Burgundy’. The wine was still stored in Burgoyne-branded hogsheads at the time of purchase. The judgement went against Arthur Godfree as ‘an injunction to restrain infringement of the Trademark and passing off’, but the penalty was only ‘the costs of the action up to and including the trial’. The Burgoyne brand was vigorously protected, whatever the outcome.

CHAPTER 13 | 1900s – Federation

Notwithstanding the general depression in trade, and a material falling off in the imports of French and German Wines, the demand for Australian Wines has been well maintained. That ‘Burgoyne’s Burgundies’ are popular is in great measure due to the fact: That every shipment is personally superintended by Australian branch house. That a guarantee of ‘Absolute Purity’ accompanies every parcel. Of the practical knowledge brought to bear on the treatment of the wines by our experts in Australia and in London. That the wines are perfectly matured, and that in our London Cellars a stock of 6,000 to 8,000 Hogsheads is kept. That the wines are liberally and judiciously advertised to bring

the demand to the door of the retailer. – PB Burgoyne & Co Ltd catalogue , ca 1905

. . . In northeast Victoria, Esca Booth bought Taminick vineyard from Robert Cox in 1904, beginning a family tradition that survives today. Although family records indicate the date of purchase as 1904, a 1908 article in the Benalla Standard suggests that the property was still owned by Robert Cox. By this time, the Taminick winery produced ports and sherries but also did a thriving ‘raw’ export trade of shiraz and riesling. No doubt Peter Bond Burgoyne was a regular buyer. Although the 1884-planted vines still survived, replanting took place in 1919, after World War I, with varieties trebbiano, shiraz, and cabernet sauvignon. The intent was to take advantage of renewed trade connections with the United Kingdom. Some of these plantings at Taminick vineyard still survive.

Penfolds’ name is known throughout the world, the firm trading in the United Kingdom, India, Japan, China, etc., as well as in all the Australian States. Their success at exhibitions has been very great, as they have, in addition to many Australian awards, obtained the gold medal at the Paris Exhibition against the wines of the world; whilst at the London Exhibition the jury of experts appointed by the King pronounced them as the best from Australia. – Penfolds Wines and Brandies, The Sydney Morning Herald , 21st of December 1905

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