CHAPTER 17 | 1930–1938 – The Dead Dog Bounce
from wherever he could find it. After he died just a few years later, his son Gus was installed as the new chairman. At the behest of Ronald Martin, who agreed to become a board member, Ron Haselgrove was given the role of technical adviser. But the company was practically insolvent. In the first instance, the focus was improving brandy production by investing in new stills. Stocks were laid down progressively until 1942, when it became possible to blend a parcel of roughly 2,000 dozen and market under the Supreme label. Meanwhile, in 1935, Yalumba claimed it was exporting 300,000 gallons of wine a year to the British Isles, Canada, and the Far East, as well as throughout Australia, representing almost one-third of Australia’s wine exports for a brief time. This was double the production since 1898, when it was making 150,000 gallons of wine and producing 30,000 gallons of spirits. Among its more memorable wines was the 1934 Yalumba Claret, which was, according to Max Lake, still holding up during the 1960s. That said, the Yalumba Carte d’Or Riesling was an important breakthrough wine of the modern era. . . .
Count Felix Graf von Luckner (seated fourth from left) at Leo Buring’s Ye Olde Crusty Cellars, May 1938. [ANMM Collection 00022970]
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