CHAPTER 20 | 1950s – Boom Times Again
1953 SEPPELT TYPE J34 GREAT WESTERN CLARET Great Western, Victoria
The 1953 J34, made from mataro, malbec, and shiraz, is regarded as Colin Preece’s finest red wine. Only 1,649 bottles were made. It enjoyed a remarkable wine show career, including being chosen as Champion Claret at the Sydney Royal Wine Show in 1956. The wine was a multi-vineyard blend from Seppelt’s St Ethel’s, Black Imperial, and Salinger Vineyards.
1953 YALUMBA GALWAY VINTAGE CLARET Barossa, South Australia
This wine was named after Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Galway, a former governor of South Australia (1914–1920), who enjoyed a close relationship with the Hill-Smith family. Every year Galway would select a pipe of port that would bear his name. Galway Pipe remains a well-known brand on the Australian market. The 1941 Galway Bin 034 Claret, a cabernet sauvignon–shiraz blend with some McLaren Vale shiraz sourced from Ben Chaffey, and the 1942 Special Reserve Galway Claret comprised the beginning of this series and won wide support. In most vintages, Galway claret was sold as commercial wine, but every now and again, it would be released as Reserve Stock. The wine, based on cabernet sauvignon and shiraz, was made by Rudi Kronberger, a legendary Barossa winemaker. These medium- bodied wines were matured in French oak puncheons for around two years before bottling and further cellar maturation. The 1953 vintage was a classic Barossa year.
In the Barossa, Penfolds expanded its vineyard plantings on its 970-acre Kalimna Vineyard property, as reported by The Advertiser on the 21st of April 1954. All of it was based on vinestock material from South Australia because of strict quarantine laws. But some individuals, desperate for new varieties, smuggled in vinestock material from Europe. Mervyn Hilton Seppelt, for example, is said to have brought in valuable Portuguese varieties used for fortified production in Portugal and planted them at Seppeltsfield, material that included touriga naçional, tinta barroca, and tinta cao. Mr Bill is said to have brought back with him (illegally, again) flor yeast from Jerez. He was also one of the founders of the Barossa Vintage Festival and the Barons of the Barossa. He received a coronation medal in 1953 for his services as chairman of South Australia’s Phylloxera Board.
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