THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
Success in wine, however, did not always translate to a good marriage. In 1937, Marcia O’Shea separated from her husband, the same year of Maurice O’Shea’s greatest vintage. Aspects of this drama of triumph and sadness are depicted in the Australian painter Gary Shead’s Mount Pleasantania , a work that evokes the triumph of a perfect vintage and the loss of family through irreconcilable differences. Maurice O’Shea is painted presiding over an act of transubstantiation while his wife, Marcia, is taken away by a satyr. Maurice O’Shea apparently said of the 1937 Mountain A Dry Red: ‘That wine is my heart and soul in a bottle – it is the best wine I will ever make’. . . .
1937 CALDWELL’S CLARET Hunter Valley, New South Wales
The 1937 Caldwell’s Claret was probably made at Tullochs at Glen Elgin in the Hunter Valley. Max Lake described this wine as ‘ravishing’. Caldwell’s was an important Sydney wine merchant during the 1920s and 1930s. Shareholders included Oscar Seppelt and Ronald Martin of Stonyfell Winery. Many table wines of this period were labelled as négociant- type brands. The success of Caldwell’s was based on Hunter Valley material, mostly derived from Tullochs. The Hunter Valley enjoyed early fame because of its proximity to Sydney and the fledgling fine wine market.
After the receivership of Auldana in the early 1930s, Archibald ‘George’ Chinnery moved over to Romalo Cellars, where he worked on sparkling wine production. He soon became an equal shareholder with Hurtle Walker and Samuel Wynn. Around 1938, Chinnery purchased Edmond Mazure’s old Home Park Vineyards from the estate of Reggie Wright. Under the name of AG Chinnery & Sons, he established Lindale Wines, which enjoyed initial success with Jack Chinnery as a junior winemaker. But fate intervened when rear gunner Flying Officer Lavington Edmund John Frederick ‘Jack’ Chinnery of 466 Squadron (Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF]) was killed in action over Belgium on the 13th of May 1944. George Chinnery died a few years later in 1946, and the enterprise and vineyards, ‘lock stock and barrels’, were sold cheaply for £7,000 to Salters, now a subsidiary of Stonyfell Wines.
In the McLaren Vale, Morphett Vale, and Reynella regions, it was typical for locals to compete in pruning matches, which were first introduced in the late 1900s to promote skilled and fast work in the vineyards. ––––––
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