CHAPTER 17 | 1930–1938 – The Dead Dog Bounce
with the Emu Wine Company since 1930 and was involved primarily in fortified wine production, particularly flor sherry and brandy. Emu Manzilla was a popular brand until the name, considered to be too closely resembling Spain’s Manzanilla, was eventually barred and changed to what would become the famous Emu Dryad. Marie Claire Brandy was also a popular domestic brand. Meanwhile, Colin Haselgrove expanded the activities of the Emu Wine Company into Western Australia and moved all the company’s administrative activities to Morphett Vale. He would eventually leave the business in 1953 to become managing director at Reynella. . . . Almost as a last hurrah before the war was the establishment of the New South Wales Wine and Food Society at Johnnie K Walker’s Rhine Castle Wine Cellars in the basement of the Royal Exchange in Sydney. The idea was promoted by David Sutherland Smith from All Saints Vineyard in Victoria, who had learned of André Simon’s Wine and Food Society in London. The original membership comprised Dr Gilbert Phillips, Maurice O’Shea, French wool broker Henri Renault, Gilbert Graham, and JK Walker. The group met regularly and participated in gastronomic meals, almost unheard of in Australia at the time. Dr Phillips was the society’s first president, and he would keep that position until 1944. The Wine and Food Society was notorious for its long lunches and for annoying the established restaurants of the time. There are stories of members being chased out of their dining rooms for their commentary about the food. But it was a genuine salon of wine and food, and it would play an integral part in pushing forward Australia’s fine wine agenda after the war. Yet, there were stories of another type of wine drinking. In 1939, an article appeared in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate introducing winegrowing in the Pokolbin area and John Younie Tulloch as an important protagonist. Before reporting his contribution to building the local economy, the journalist wrote, ‘Unfortunately, many people still confuse wine with a deadly beverage called “pinkie” or “plonk”, which is a mixture of cheap wine, methylated spirits and boot polish. It produces Dutch courage, and is frequently mentioned in Police Courts.’ This type of reporting probably reflected some truth, but such overstated remarks were of no help to normalising wine consumption in Australia. By 1937, vignerons were getting annoyed with the references to ‘pinkie’, ‘plonk’, and ‘red dynamite’. The various Pure Food Acts and Wine Adulteration Acts across the Australian states mostly protected customers from adulterated wines and such deadly beverages. But the advent of war between Britain and Germany would sweep away such social issues for the time being and ultimately change society and its attitudes forever.
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