CHAPTER 20 | 1950s – Boom Times Again
lines. Mick Seppelt also had trouble with managing his cattle herd, but ultimately ill health forced him to sell his property in 1955, a few years before he died at Mornington in 1957. After changing hands briefly with another dreamer, the Bay Meadows property and remaining vineyard was purchased by Ken Broadhurst. The derelict vineyard was resurrected and extended with the help of the wine merchant Doug Seabrook, Ken Broadhurst’s brother-in-law. Between 1958 and 1966, several vintages, primarily based on cabernet and riesling, were vinified at the old Passiflora Factory and bottled for sale through Seabrook’s family business WJ Seabrook & Sons. Doug Seabrook was well connected with the Melbourne wine trade and became the chairman of judges at the Melbourne Wine Show during this period. He was also an influential member of the Victorian Viticultural Association. Sadly in 1967 a massive bushfire destroyed the vineyard and ended the first post-war commercial enterprise on the Mornington Peninsula. . . . Wine clubs proliferated during the 1950s onwards, from suburban Beefsteak and Burgundy clubs to the Dan Murphy’s Vintage Club, which was founded in 1955 and, by 1977, boasted 18,000 members. The Wine Society, a cooperative owned by members and originally known as The Australian Wine Consumers Co-Operative Society Ltd, was founded in 1946 by a group of professionals, including Dr Gilbert Phillips, a renowned Sydney neurosurgeon. While working in London during the early 1930s, he had become a member of the Wine and Food Society and was involved in the creation of a new branch in New South Wales in 1939. He also wrote an essay, which he delivered as a lecture in 1950, titled ‘The Appreciation of Wine’. A tall, energetic man with enormous curiosity, ease of character, stature, and wit, Dr Phillips pioneered the cause of wine at a time when most people drank spirits, cheap fortified wine, or beer. He died at the age of 52 from melanoma. The significant attention given to viticulture and winemaking by journalists from the earliest days of colonial wine reflected the Australian community’s interest in everything to do with agricultural progress, the development of wealth, and personal ambitions. William Macarthur, AC Kelly, Ebenezer Ward, and many others contributed extraordinary perspectives to aspiring winemakers and interested readers during the colonial era. But after World War II, wine writing changed from observations and technical exchange to more consumer- orientated stories. The father of modern Australian wine writers was Walter ‘Bob’ Edward Senior James, whose father, Sir Walter Hartwell James, was a former premier of Western Australia. He very much connected the outlooks of the past to the more open- minded views of wine during contemporary times.
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