THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
Business was brisk and profitable. Jon Francis Brown was able to buy a Model T Ford the following year. But 1916 was also the year that the dreaded phylloxera reached Milawa. Once again, de Castella came with advice. Mondeuse, relatively unknown in Australia and imported from Savoy by François de Castella, had been recommended as a particularly good variety to plant. At nearby Mount Ophir, in Rutherglen, it had proven to give the highest yields per acre without diminishment of quality. The plantings of riesling, muscadelle, brown muscat, mondeuse, semillon, graciano, shiraz, and cabernet sauvignon at Brown Brothers, however, laid the foundations for imaginative new directions, but not before World War I intervened with the family’s lucrative trade with London. . . . The enormous destruction of shipping and lives by German U-boats from around 1916 made the export markets increasingly inaccessible to the wine industry. Trade had already diminished significantly after 1914. Whereas by 1915, Australia was exporting 712,467 gallons of wine to Britain, by 1918, only 176,029 gallons were successfully shipped. Even so, Château Tanunda boasted that its Three Star Brandy was ‘at the front in two ways with Australian soldiers, helping to fight Britain’s battles, and at the front of all brandies Australian and foreign’. Although the winery was seemingly profitable, it was heavily in debt. Seppelt took possession of the ‘magnificent’ Château Tanunda and its Lyndoch winery in May 1916, but the Adelaide Wine Company was finally wound up in November 1918. Meanwhile, in McLaren Vale, many vignerons sold their grapes for distillation. In 1917, Adelaide’s Daily Herald reported ‘scores of wagon loads of grapes are to be seen daily on the way to the McLaren Vale station, where the fruit is transferred from road vehicles to railway trucks for conveyance to the Reynella distillery’. The Gramp family was also in an acquisitive mood during this time. By 1912, G Gramp & Sons was incorporated as a limited company, further expanding its cellars, including a distillery at Rowland Flat built between 1913 and 1917. It also purchased the famous Moorooroo cellars and vineyards near Jacob’s Creek in 1916. Despite ill will towards second- and third-generation German South Australian families being heightened because of the war, the Barossa wine community stumbled along. At Greenock, teachers and children of the local school planted trees in honour of Australian soldiers who were formerly pupils. Many of them had German surnames, including Privates C Schrader and A Glatz, both killed in action, and Privates A Richter, A Schirmer, and J Semmler. The Seppelt company, now under the management of Benno Seppelt’s eldest son, Oscar, became the largest buyer of grapes in the valley and supported many growers of German origin. In 1917, Seppelt was crushing 6,353 tons of grapes
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