THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
Max Schubert’s problems with Grange allowed St Henri Claret, first made under the Penfolds moniker in 1953, to steal the limelight. This maturation style differed from Grange, as it relied on larger seasoned oak vessels without any form of barrel fermentation. Winemaker John Davoren’s aim was to make a traditional claret style that accentuated fruit and maturation characters rather than oak complexity. The existence of St Henri foiled the groundbreaking theories and practices of Grange. The competition between Max Schubert and John Davoren to produce a great Australian claret style ignited excitement within the Penfolds team, but the narrative of fallouts and bad blood between the two protagonists is largely an invention, probably to heighten the tension and drama of the Grange story. Neither the Schubert nor Davoren families ever remember the two having gone through any bitter confrontation. In fact, the two played golf together regularly and enjoyed a robust and honest professional relationship. Grange and St Henri, both initially offered to the public as claret styles, will forever be linked. The 1957 St Henri Claret, the first official release, marks an important step forward for winemaking in Australia. Not only does it honour 19th-century aspirations, but without it, the Grange story would not have the same richness and interest. While Penfolds invested in the future of claret styles, vigneron and wine merchant David Wynn saw the opportunity to make an accessible modern Australian burgundy that would offer customers value and quality. During the late 1950s, Wynns Ovens Valley Burgundy, based on shiraz grown around Wangaratta, Rutherglen, Glenrowan, and the Alpine Valley of northeast Victoria, was launched with great success. According to wine writer Phillip White, Ovens Valley Burgundy ‘was David Wynn’s response to Penfolds’ St Henri Claret, and was a high country Shiraz fermented soft in big old oak’. This popular wine, later rebadged as Wynns Ovens Valley Shiraz, was at first a reimagined version of the ferruginous Australian burgundy styles exported to the United Kingdom for Peter Bond Burgoyne and Aylwin Pownall during the late 1890s. The wine was typically matured in large oak vats for two or three years before bottling, and the original material was sourced and vinified at Booth’s. Len Evans recalled them as being ‘remarkable wines of considerable strength of character with a vaguely iron-y, ironstone quality in them’. But by the 1970s, volumes would increase, and the original blueprint would be lost. . . .
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