CHAPTER 19 | 1946–1949 – Return to Normality
famous Australian champagne house, along with Minchinbury, in Sydney. Preece was an extraordinary winemaker with a genius for blending and for sparkling wine production. His wines captivated wine critics and wine show judges. Although he supervised table wine production and the release of Moyston Claret, Chalambar Burgundy, Arrawatta Riesling, and Rhymney Chablis, he is invariably associated with Great Western Champagne and Great Western Sparkling Burgundy. Historian David Dunstan writes of Preece in the Australian Dictionary of Biography that he was ‘of less than average height, with a round face and spectacles. An amiable man and a wine educator, he was a gregarious and generous host who welcomed visitors with treasures from his cellars.’ Leo Hurley was Colin Preece’s right-hand winemaker, who could remember meeting Hans Irvine, the former owner of the Great Western winery, in 1922. But he was a teetotaller, spitting out the wine during evaluation and blending sessions. Although not well known outside wine circles, Hurley played an important background role in encouraging a new wave of vignerons in Central Victoria, including Warrenmang and Summerfield, especially after his retirement from Seppelt. After his retirement in 1963, Colin Preece also helped other newcomers in the region, especially Ross Shelmerdine at Mitchelton winery near Nagambie. . . . There was another perspective of Colin Preece, which vastly differs from the legend. Winemaker Scotty Ireland, who was Preece’s assistant, wrote in a private letter to Peter Lehmann, ‘With a ten-year stint at the wine face as Preece’s assistant, I realised after some five years that I was wasting my time and that the glory that shone from the Great Western wines was not attributable to Preece but a result of three main factors, the fifties decade, the “terroir” as the French call it, and an unknown winemaker’. That unknown man was cellar foreman Leo Hurley, who, according to Scotty Ireland in that same letter, ‘spent all his life working for Seppelt’s Great Western. He was the foreman with the “rule of thumb” know-how when Preece arrived and certainly a “quiet achiever” working without recognition and under primitive conditions.’ Even more incendiary was Scotty Ireland’s description of Colin Preece. Possibly embittered by his own lack of recognition, he wrote, ‘Preece was not an aggressive man but built his pedestal quietly on the building blocks of the unique Great Western dry and sparkling wines. Never once did I cross swords with him but also never once did I see in my ten years with him, [him] physically join in with the team and dirty his hands in the art of making wine. He ruled by fear and with bluff, always remote and unpopular and most importantly with no secret agenda in turning grapes into wine much to my disappointment.’ These remarks, tainted with sadness and disillusionment, should be viewed within the context of Preece’s formidable reputation. Within the corporate world today,
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