CHAPTER 20 | 1950s – Boom Times Again
1957 PENFOLDS ST HENRI CLARET South Australia
Initially, John Davoren’s St Henri achieved greater commercial acceptability than Grange. It was a more elegant approachable style, whereas the revolutionary Grange was something of a blockbuster, with a richness and fullness ‘that few people cared for’. Reports from the critics of the 1960s refer to St Henri as ‘one of the only true claret [sic] styles in Australia’. The first experimental vintage, made from Auldana and Paracombe district fruit, was made in 1953. While the 1957 vintage is officially recognised as the first release, John Davoren would still call them trials until 1960. The first experimental vintages, based on cabernet sauvignon and mataro, were foot-stomped in open-ended hogsheads. A relatively high percentage of stalks was also retained in the vinification. Davoren once explained this practice: ‘We add stalks deliberately to keep the skins apart for the plunging cap, and to get colour as quickly as possible’.
The Hunter had O’Shea, Great Western was translated to wine immortality by Colin Preece, and that master of blenders, Roger Warren, guided Hardy’s. Less well recognised, but no less illustrious, is Bill Redman, who made or supervised virtually every wine out of Coonawarra for most of this century. – Max Lake, Classic Wines of Australia, 1966
Alan (Hick) & Margaret
Hickinbotham, South Australia. [Hickinbotham Collection]
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