THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
area’. In 1936, many soldier settlers were encouraged by the South Australian government to pull their vines and establish dairying farms, and within a few years, of the original 900 acres, only 300 remained. . . . Sydney Hamilton was one of the first commercial winemakers to adopt cold fermentation techniques with the use of refrigeration plants and copper coiling in his vats during the 1930s, even though Professor Arthur Perkins had been experimenting with methods of cooling down fermentations in the late 1890s. Sydney Hamilton was also a highly inventive man who constructed motor vehicles and designed filtration systems during his spare time. Among his employees was the Baltic German winemaker John Seeck, who was also working at Reynella and, according to Robert Hamilton, had been connected to the Russian Imperial household before the Russian Revolution. Seeck was also the technical expert behind the development of light aromatic styles using refrigeration. With his experience in Germany’s Mosel wine region during the 1880s, he was determined to make fresh light white wines. Around 1934 to 1935, Syd Hamilton and John Seeck excavated an underground cellar and installed wax-lined wooden vats with cooling coils and jackets. Using this updated equipment, they employed ammonia and a brine tank to circulate cooling brine. As a result, Hamilton produced the first genuinely aromatic and light-bodied Australian white wines based on pedro ximenez and verdelho. Hamilton’s Ewell Moselle, a semi-sweet white, became Australia’s biggest-selling wine until it was overtaken by Lindeman’s Ben Ean Moselle in the early 1970s. Refrigeration was also introduced by the Stanley Wine Company in 1934. This winemaking technology became an essential element of Australia’s white wine boom in the 1950s and underpinned the development of ultra-fine riesling wines in the Clare Valley and Eden Valley, including Pewsey Vale riesling. Ron Haselgrove would later write in his memoirs that ‘[c]old fermentation and control has lifted the quality of Australian dry wines into World Class and made possible the making of quality wine in hot climates and from grapes that were hitherto impossible’. The Hamilton’s Oaklands winery comprised the largest wooden vats in Australia. These massive vessels made of Australian jarrah and used for final blending could hold 52,000 imperial gallons (over 230,000 litres) apiece. Much of this wine was fortified tawny port and exported to England in hogsheads, a typical order being for a thousand hogsheads per shipment. After his retirement, John Seeck moved to the Western Districts of Victoria to join his daughter. (His granddaughter Tammy – Tamara Margaret Beggs – would
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