THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
Meanwhile, on a visit to South Australia in 1948, the founding president of the Irish Republic, Éamon De Valera, visited the Jesuits at Sevenhill. He had ‘slipped into Australia’ to garner support for the creation of Eire. This drew criticism and headlines that Roman Catholics ‘run Australia’. By this time, the church community was run by Jesuit brothers, mostly of Irish descent. The expansion of the Catholic Church and shift in priorities had seen the end of a college in 1880 and the restructure of the Jesuit community. In 1901, the Irish and Austrian missions in the Australian colonies formally amalgamated, but the winery continued to operate throughout these changes. When De Valera visited the Jesuits at Sevenhill, a dinner was held in his honour, where he was served Sevenhill wines. In attendance was the winemaker, Brother George Downey, who had taken over winemaking duties in 1925 and would remain in charge until 1951. . . . In 1948, the Emu Wine Company’s William Benjamin (Ben) Chaffey, a scion of Mildura’s Chaffey family, bought with his friend Alan Ferguson the historic old Hope Vineyards in McLaren Vale from Geoffrey Kay. Both had served with the RAAF during World War II. The property was renamed Benalan, and with Colin Haselgrove’s approval, the pair sold their bulk wine to the Emu Wine Company, which kept the business solvent. Family connections with the Haselgroves and others also helped. Geelong-Grammar-educated Ben Chaffey, who had grown up in Mildura, worked at the Mildura Winery and Distillery under the management of Ron Haselgrove and had also attended Roseworthy Agricultural College, where he graduated with a degree in agriculture in 1935 and oenology in 1939. After the war, a long stint working for the Emu Wine Company as a winemaker rounded out his wine education. Although Chaffey’s business partner, Ferguson, was practical with machinery and helped install the winery with second-hand equipment, his heart wasn’t in it, and he was bought out. In 1951, a new partnership, Edwards & Chaffey, was formed with friend Henry Edwards, a grapegrower whose property had been compulsorily acquired for Adelaide’s urban development in the Marion district. Although the business flourished, with bulk wine trade to the Emu Wine Company, Mildura Winery, Yalumba, Orlando, Lindeman’s, and Penfolds, Edwards & Chaffey also launched the Seaview label in 1951, offering what it described as all types of wines. Cabernet sauvignon became popular once again after World War II. Prior to the 1940s, there were insufficient plantings or consistency of yields to realise the variety’s potential, although in Western Australia, Houghton’s possessed some high-bearing cabernet sauvignon vines said to have derived from Cape-sourced
260
Powered by FlippingBook