THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
at Magill, to Europe to check on stocks lying in London and to investigate sherry production and winemaking in Europe. This fateful visit led to an unexpected series of events that would change the destiny of the company. Even so, Penfolds was the first wine producer to make and sell Australian flor sherry styles. They would remain popular among Australian wine consumers until the early 1970s. This category expanded during the late 1940s and early 1950s with other entrants, including Château Reynella and Mildara. Ron Haselgrove, in his memoirs, said that the best palomino strain was found at Potts (Bleasdale) in Langhorne Creek. On his trip to Jerez/Xérès (Sherry) in Spain in 1950, on an almost identical schedule as Max Schubert’s, Haselgrove identified a number of palomino cuttings at Gonzalez Byass and organised their importation to Australia. After five years of quarantine, the palomino selections were planted in Mildura and distributed widely in New South Wales and Western Australia. The strict controls in South Australia, however, prohibited its importation there.
As Penfolds’ newly appointed senior winemaker in 1948, Max Schubert was keenly interested in modernising the Penfolds range. Aside from the important work to be done with fortified wine production and sparkling wine, there was a growing belief that red table wine would become increasingly important in post-war Australia. In 1951, Penfolds’ clarets and burgundies comprised Private Bin, at 4s/9d, and Extra Special Royal Reserve Claret, at 3s/6d. There were other bottlings, taken from barrel, for various Beefsteak and Burgundy clubs, but the range was minimal. Fortified wines still accounted for a huge amount of sales, though. For instance, Penfolds Five Star Club Tawny Port, sometimes vintage-dated (from around 1945), became a popular line into the 1950s. –––––– . . .
When Max Schubert returned from his trip to Europe in 1950, he was inspired to make a great Australian claret. He surveyed all of ‘the likely vineyards and varieties which would give maximum skin pigmentation, and a sugar balance, resulting in a full-bodied well-balanced wine containing the maximum extraction of all the components which make up the grape’. This survey, as it turns out, was really limited to the existing Penfolds intake and grower relationships. Schubert’s choice of shiraz, also known as hermitage, or red hermitage, in Australia, was based on availability, quality, reliability, and continuity of supply; cabernet sauvignon was not widely planted in South Australia at the time. Although Penfolds had recently acquired the Barossa Valley’s Kalimna Vineyard, including the 1880s plantings of Block 42 cabernet sauvignon, yields and quality were inconsistent.
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