CHAPTER 20 | 1950s – Boom Times Again
The mercurial Hickinbotham is behind numerous innovations and inventions. Following research carried out by his father in the 1930s and 1940s, Hickinbotham deliberately induced the secondary malo-lactic fermentation in the red wines of Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate, where he made the first two vintages. – James Halliday AM, The Australian , 4th of April 1997
. . . By 1954, all of Wynn’s red wines were undergoing malolactic fermentation after their primary ferments. One can only assume that Hickinbotham’s experiments were about the control of malolactic fermentation rather than its occurrence. Nevertheless, this practice was adopted by other winemakers and would lead to further bacterial stability in Australian red wines. Ray Beckwith’s discovery of monitoring wine stability and the understanding of malolactic fermentation in Australian red wine led to a new era in winemaking, but all of this took time to distil through the system. The 1955 Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate Michael Shiraz was a massive achievement for the day and pointed to the region’s future. The Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), with John Fornachon as founding director and Bryce Rankine (who would later become the dean of oenology at Roseworthy Agricultural College) as chief research officer, was established in 1955. According to Ron Haselgrove, it was made possible by the efforts of the Federal Viticultural Council and the Australian Wine Board and the diversion of surplus bounty funds. One of the first projects was to study malolactic fermentation in Australian conditions and investigate the relationship between grape varieties, soil, climate, and wine quality. These questions had already been raised years before, particularly during the 1920s. In 1954, David Wynn said to the local growers, ‘My prime aim is an extensive advertising campaign in Melbourne to make Coonawarra famous’. That same year, Norm Walker, the son of legendary winemaker Hurtle Walker, replaced Ian Hickinbotham as winemaker and made the first vintage of Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon from three tons of grower fruit (2,000 gallons). This was the first 100% Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon in the region’s history. The advertising campaigns, in which Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate was positioned as making ‘the first quality wine in Australia’, worked with remarkable success. Meanwhile, the Redman family were at the centre of winemaking in Coonawarra. Aside from managing Mildara’s property and developing their own Rouge Homme label, they were selling bulk wine to Hardy’s, Yalumba, Reynella,
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