THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
was then winemaker at Dr Thomas Fiaschi’s Tizzana Vineyard at Sackville Reach on the Hawkesbury River during the early 1900s. He had also worked at Cawarra and Kirkton Vineyards in the Hunter Valley, and it is believed by some historians that Ambrose James Laraghy had sourced his grapevine cuttings from here. The Kaluna Vineyard was acquired from McLean by Colonel Laraghy somewhere after 1928, reportedly with just a handshake and no formal arrangements. At the time, the winery sourced most of its wine grapes from Mudgee and Griffith because there were few vineyards in the vicinity, and also by this time, Sydney’s suburbs were marching westwards. In Mudgee, white pineau grapes were planted by Bill Roth of Westcourt (which became Craigmoor in 1940). When local Alf Kurtz, a winemaker at Craigmoor, planted his vineyard at Mudgee Wines in the mid-1960s, he took cuttings from the original block. In 1969, French ampelographer Dr Denis Bourbals identified these vines as being very high- quality virus-free chardonnay. According to James Halliday, this would have come as no surprise to Alf Kurtz, who had shared a bottle labelled White Pineau with Dr Bourbals on his visit. This material, possibly directly related to the 1832 Busby collection, became the source cuttings of many chardonnay vineyards planted out in the 1970s. The chardonnay vines at the HVD Vineyard, previously owned by the Hunter Valley Distillery and Penfolds, were planted in 1908 and likely came from a local source, possibly Kirkton Vineyard, before it was pulled out in 1924. But Mudgee’s place in Australia’s chardonnay story is interesting because it highlights the connections between families and places and how individuals shared resources, especially through difficult economic times. In 1934, the local The Biz newspaper reported a ‘Strange Coincidence’: while touring the country, ‘Mr. Colin Laraghy, of Kaluna Vineyard, Smithfield, bought several 1,500-gallon casks from a vigneron at Tamworth, and had them dismantled and reinstalled at his vineyard. The interesting feature of this incident was that his father had installed the casks in the vineyard at Tamworth 50 years ago. They were still in good condition.’ . . . In 1931, the 16-year-old Max Schubert was employed by the fiery-tempered Austrian-born John Farsch, Penfolds’ first wine chemist (oenologist), at Nuriootpa as a junior laboratory assistant. That year, during a muggy December, fruit flies believed to have come from Rutherglen were found at Dorrien in the Barossa Valley. This stoked alarm among growers, as ‘Rutherglen Fly’ was capable of destroying entire vineyard crops. After an attack on the shoots and young leaves, the vines had a similar appearance to frost damage. Intense cultivation was regarded as a safeguard, and some growers, including F Basedow, worked the strips to an extra-fine tilth. The Department of Agriculture recommended that growers spray an emulsion of soap and petrol to eradicate the pest.
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