THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
At the time of Federation in 1901, the Coonawarra Fruit Colony comprised 700 acres of orchards and vineyards, roughly half of each. The plantings primarily consisted of shiraz (180 acres), cabernet sauvignon (120 acres), and malbec (30 acres). There were also minor plantings of pinot noir. Under the guidance of Ewen McBain, the Coonawarra Cellars was extended to increase storage capacity substantially. The 1901 vintage was a bumper crop. All the growers received profitable prices for their grapes, although John Riddoch’s low-yielding pinot noir plantings were unsuccessful and mostly grubbed up. In the same year, Ewen McBain employed the 14-year-old Bill Redman, who had arrived in the region with his 16-year-old brother, Dick. Although Dick was laid off after the picking season, Bill was kept on with full board and lodging for £1 a week, which represented 66 working hours. Although unforeseen, this arrangement, strict working regime, and experience would enable Coonawarra’s wine tradition to carry on through the worst of times. The Coonawarra Fruit Colony was a thriving agricultural community with a significant grape harvest. At John Riddoch’s cellars, ‘altogether 415 tons of grapes were put through for about 64,000 gallons of wine’ for the 1902 vintage. But a labour shortage hampered progress after Federation. The abolishment of intercolonial customs and duties also disadvantaged the community of Coonawarra Blockers, leaving the region vulnerable to economic crisis. Although competition from more established producers was blamed, isolation and over- production were also likely culprits. At around the same time, French viticulturalist Pierre Viala and entrepreneur Victor Vermorel began their great ampelographic exploration of all the known grape varieties around the world. This massive task took the two authors, and around 70 others, nearly 10 years to complete. The 1910 first edition of Ampélographie: traité général de viticulture , published by Masson et Cie, Paris, and published between 1901 and 1910, is a magnum opus comprising seven volumes, including 500 coloured lithographic plates and over 900 engraved plates or illustrations. The release of these seven volumes played an influential role in encouraging vignerons and academics to establish the true identity of grape varieties. In Australia, local names for grape varieties were already known to be ‘hopelessly incorrect’, the Ampélographie noted, as reported in The Advertiser on the 18th of June 1924. In 1919, there was an attempt to create a standardisation of grape variety nomenclature around Australia, but there was difficulty in moving grapevine material because of the various state phylloxera Acts and lack of collaborative effort. Despite this, by the early 1920s, it was generally known that Shepherd’s riesling and Hunter River riesling were local names for semillon. Other local names, including blue imperial and black prince, were already known to be cinsault, a grape variety from southern France.
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