CHAPTER 20 | 1950s – Boom Times Again
was not the case. Instead, an addition of sweet grape juice and yeast was added to dry white table wine in a pressure tank. ‘Fermentation occurs but, by closing the valves of the tank’, Hickinbotham explained, ‘the gas is prevented from escaping into the atmosphere and instead dissolves in the wine’. Orlando’s Barossa Pearl achieved sales of over 27 million bottles during its product lifetime. . . .
1956 LINDEMAN’S BIN 1270 PORPHYRY Hunter Valley, New South Wales
Porphyry is derived from the name of Reverend Henry Carmichael’s 19th-century 24-acre vineyard, which was already 32 years old when his wine was shown at the Bordeaux International Exhibition of Wines in 1882. The Porphyry style was based on specially selected hand-picked fruit, typically raisined and high in sugar. About one or two days of skin contact during early vinification was favoured to build flavour and colour in the wine. Botrytis may have featured occasionally, but this was generally avoided because it could go too far in a matter of hours in that climate.
Advertisements of Australian wine, although frequent in the newspapers from the 1850s onwards, had got bolder in their messages, and by the 1950s, they had become an art form: Orlando – 1847–1947 – One Hundred Years Better
Minchinbury makes friends everywhere! Always before you – let it be for you Australia’s aristocrat of wine To get wine knowledge, get Penfolds Wine Penfolds were old when your Grandparents were young
These were typical advertising slogans of the late 1940s and 1950s. Orlando also promoted its wines as gold medal winners during the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956. Advertising and marketing reached a new level of sophistication with the considerable flair of Rada Penfold Russell, who was instrumental in bringing
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