CHAPTER 17 | 1930–1938 – The Dead Dog Bounce
This impasse delayed the 1931 Barossa vintage, and it was this friction that led to the creation of the South Australian Grape Growers Co-operative in May 1931. Although the company was incorporated in June 1931, the fruit was processed by Tolley, Scott & Tolley and at the Fowler’s Kalimna winery. A perceived shiraz glut was partially offset by encouraging export orders of 321 hogsheads of wine to England by October, and as noted in The Leader , 14th of January 1932, ‘by the end of the year everything had been cleared’. This episode marked the beginning of the fortified wine Nurivin Ruby, a blend of shiraz, mataro, and carignan. In the meantime, plans were made to build a 1,500-tonne winery. The selection of the site became a stoush between the Tanunda and Nuriootpa communities. Councillor HW Hoffmann offered land at Kroemer’s Crossing in Tanunda, and PH Kaesler proposed land in Nuriootpa. Both pieces of land had railway line frontage, but it was decided to build the winery in Nuriootpa, and by 1933, the proposed winery was built to process the growers’ fruit. Most of the cooperative’s wine was sold to export markets. The barrels were all stencilled ‘Nurivin’, which became the company’s brand name. At first, the business enjoyed booming sales, but the advent of war, an end to beer rationing, and changing fashions led to severe liquidity problems. Still, it survived, and in 1956 the cooperative was renamed Kaiser Stuhl. The Nurivin brand name lived on well into the 1960s. In 1932, Theodor Hanisch constructed a winery at the old Auricht property at Langmeil and called it Paradale. He had inherited the land through his mother, Eleonore Auricht, the second daughter of Christian Auricht. But the business never really prospered. By the 1950s, it would offer 12 different wines: 5 ports, 3 sherries, 2 muscats, and just 2 table wines, hock and claret. Theodor would die in 1968, and his son the following year. Bernkastel Wines would acquire the land and business in 1972, but it, too, would prove ill-fated, although a small patch of 1843 shiraz vines apparently survived, despite neglect. This 1843 date of planting is quite possible, as vines are hardy plants with strong root systems. If this claim is true – which is contentious – these are the oldest surviving commercial grapevines in Australia. When the 25-year-old Hugo Gramp took over as managing director of G Gramp & Sons in 1920, it ushered in a dynamic era for Orlando Wines. Investment in new technologies would gradually gather pace. Gramp’s contribution to industry politics was highly influential. On a visit to London in 1932, he observed the challenges of preferential trade and the diminishing reputation of Australia as a fine wine producer. He noted that ‘the consumption of Australian wine has increased steadily in Britain since 1927, but the consumption of foreign wines has declined’ and that British Empire preferences
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