CHAPTER 16 | 1920s – Bountiful Years
Sir Douglas Mawson’s
In Coonawarra, Roseworthy-trained Harold Richardson, a second-generation Coonawarra blocker, built a gabled winery in 1929, highlighting misguided optimism (it would be dismantled in 1948). Whilst there were significant successes to reflect upon at the close of the Roaring Twenties, there were also frustrations for the wine industry, such as the failed attempts to set a minimum floor price for export wine. In the Eden Valley, many new riesling vineyards had been established in the late 1920s, even though the market was limited for hock-style wines. These regional or national challenges, however, were dwarfed by the disastrous global repercussions of October 1929’s great Wall Street Crash. As this crisis unfolded, it must have been tough going, to say the least, to keep vineyards and wineries in operation. Australia had only enjoyed a few years of boom times after World War I, and now the Great Depression would further challenge society. Dwindling demand led to an increasing glut in wine production during the 1930s. This would result in a vine-pull scheme in South Australia. Vineyard acreage in the Yarra Valley and Hunter Valley would also halve. Already the vineyards at Yeringberg, comprising valuable heritage vinestock, had been grubbed up, foreshadowing the desperation and hard reality of the times. . . .
Christmas dinner table in Antarctica showing Yalumba 4 Crown Port bottles, 25 December 1929. [Yalumba Collection]
155
Powered by FlippingBook