CHAPTER 19 Return to Normality
N ew technical advances, better winemaking equipment (including new refrigeration technology) and skills, and a growing cosmopolitan middle- class society built on immigration led to what was referred to as mild prosperity (largely because of the shortage of beer) and expansion after World War II. It was a period in which people got on with their lives with great optimism. The end of the war was a great relief and once again opened up opportunities for the wine industry. The optimism for an informed fine wine culture was reflected in the foundation of the Wine Society in 1946 by the gifted surgeon Gilbert Phillips. Wine and food societies of all types, including Beefsteak and Burgundy clubs, and the notorious House of Lords, which convened at the Jimmy Watson Bar in Melbourne, began to proliferate, giving the wine community better access to the wine consumer. New housing developments and industrial activities poached agricultural land close to the cities. The closest included the Marion district near Adelaide, which quickly urbanised after the war. One of the key successes during this period was Hamilton’s, whose semi-sweet Ewell Moselle was one of the best sellers in the market. But its vineyards were in the pathway of new housing developments and an uncertain future awaited. In 1946, the Montpellier-trained Maurice Ou, who had been imprisoned by the Japanese during the war, took over winemaking from the remarkable winemaker John Seeck, who soon after retired to the Western Districts of Victoria, near his daughter. Seeck’s were very big boots to fill, but Ou possessed a brilliant mind and
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