THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
At Penfolds, Alfred Scholz’s meticulous management was reflected in the polished brass, brilliant red paint, and spotless appointments of Penfolds Nuriootpa winery and distillery. His reputation for detail, orderly working days, and rigorous discipline were also legendary. Uneducated and previously a miner, he had worked up the ladder at Penfolds and was now in charge of winery operations in the Barossa Valley. But these were also times when vineyard plantings and cellars were expanded at Magill and Nuriootpa. Penfolds purchased masses of Australian jarrah for short- term storage and oak for long-term maturation. After World War I, a consignment of ‘shooks’ arrived from France. These dismantled 5,000- and 10,000-litre oak casks were made from Spessart oak from the Spessart forest in Southern Germany, near Würzburg, and formed a part of Germany’s war reparation to France. . . . In McLaren Vale, some properties changed hands. Now without a male heir, Frederick Wilkinson sold his mixed farm, vineyard, and winery Ryecroft in 1919 to Lieutenant James Ingoldby and his father-in-law, TC Walker, a prominent businessman and chairman of the Lion Brewing Company. Without much knowledge of winemaking, the enterprise was assisted by Leo Buring and a young Ron Haselgrove. Ryecroft flourished, with almost all of its dry red production being sold in bulk to Gilbey’s in England until the 1950s. Some years later, in 1924, Walter Craven, the owner of the historic Hope Vineyards, sold his property to Geoffrey Kay, a winemaker for the Emu Wine Company. Unwell since the death of his son Hiram at Gallipoli in 1915, Walter Craven, now aged 64, found himself unable to carry on.
You buy me for two bob a bottle. I am carried in cars and in trains. I am what you pour down your throttle To play ducks and drakes with your brains. Why, it’s me, that’s called pinkie or plonk Or Red Ned some people declare. I’m the stuff that will colour your konk. And put quite a kink in your hair. I make plenty work for the lawyer. The coroner too has his say.
A couple of nips and I’ll floor yer. So down with the drink, they all say. – ‘Pinkie’ by James Osborne, writing under the name ‘Jimmy Dux’, Glen Innes Examiner, 8th of August 1935
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