CHAPTER 15 | 1914–1918 – World War 1
and producing over one million gallons of wine. During World War I, Seppelt acquired the DG Hamilton & Sons winery in Rutherglen and planted new vineyards in that region with phylloxera-resistant rootstocks. By 1918, it had also acquired the Hans Irvine sparkling wine business at Great Western in Victoria, making the Seppelt family the most powerful vigneron and drinks manufacturer in the country, despite the anti-German backlash in South Australia. . . . During the war, a conference took place in Paris in June 1916 to discuss trade after the war. The Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes attended as a delegate of the British government. News began to filter through that the appropriation of words like ‘port’, ‘sherry’, and ‘tokay’ constituted a ‘direct prejudice to the European viticultural industry in general’. Soon after, the Federal Minister of Trade and Customs Percy Wilkinson delivered an address, ‘Nomenclature of Australian Wines in relation to historical commercial usage of European wine names’, to a number of South Australian vignerons, including Walter G Smith of Yalumba and Henry Martin of Stonyfell. The news, reported by Adelaide’s Chronicle in September 1917, was received with some astonishment, with Walter Smith proclaiming it as ‘very serious’, meaning that the public would have to be familiarised with the new names of products through advertising. Henry Martin, The Chronicle said, ‘pointed out that there was no attempt at deception. The words “port”, “sherry”, and so on simply having been used to denote type of wine.’ The federal government, under Billy Hughes, also introduced a Wine Adulteration Act to protect consumers against shoddy practices.
‘Great excitement was manifested here at Coonawarra on Tuesday [19th of November 1918] when it became known that the armistice had been signed. The School children were granted a holiday, and the steam whistles at the wine cellars proclaimed the joyful news far and near.’ – Border Watch, 1918
. . . The end of World War I was a relief, but new problems emerged. A new wave of wowserism, temperance, and prohibitionist propaganda threatened the industry. In 1918, the Federal Viticultural Council of Australia was formed to protect the reputation of Australian wine and to defend its economic value as a primary industry. Among the members were vignerons Dr Thomas Fiaschi, Eric Lindeman,
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