CHAPTER 19 | 1946–1949 – Return to Normality
Roseworthy Oenology Class 1946–1947. Back row, left to right: AA Corban, Brian J Barry, PO Weste, J Stanford, JO Basedow, JR Walters, D Roe, P LeH Tummel. Front row: Jim B Barry, RO Knappstein, Dr AR Callaghan (Principal), Mr JH Chambers (House Master), JR Blake, RL Buller. [Jim Barry Collection]
After the acquisition of the Kalimna Vineyard by Penfolds in 1945 former gold miner Alfred Scholz, also the ‘skipper’ of Penfolds in the Barossa by this time, noticed a small tunnel at the cellars which had been driven into the side of the hill for bottle storage. Using jackhammers, gelignite and detonators, Scholz and the Nuriootpa team further excavated the tunnel to allow the storage of hogsheads for flor sherry production. At its peak, around 100,000 gallons of sherry were seeded and aged at the Kalimna cellars, at which point success required yet further excavation and expansion of flor sherry production at the Nuriootpa winery in the late 1940s. Alfred Sholz commissioned the fabrication of a 1200 gallon mild steel tank, lined with paraffin wax, to carry the flor sherry from the Kalimna site to Nuriootpa for blending and bottling. According to Ray Beckwith ‘it was the first use of bulk transport’. After the cellar expansion the amount of flor Sherry stored in hogsheads at Penfolds at Nurriootpa and Kalimna Cellars totalled 300,000 gallons, a vast stack of ‘around 5800 hogsheads at an average of 52 gallons, which meant a continuous task of check, check, check’ . . . John Davoren, who was managing Penfolds’ Kalimna property in the Barossa Valley, was transferred to Magill in 1947 to take charge of the newly acquired Auldana Cellars. Ray Beckwith commented, ‘Of course, John Davoren was eminently suited to that. He’d grown up in the vineyards on the Hunter River, with his father as manager. He’d grown up with vines.’ Davoren had also worked at
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