THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
Meanwhile, at Château Tanunda, in the Barossa Valley, South Australia, the business benefited from tariff-free trade with other Australian states and thriving export markets. Joseph Gurr and John George Kelly managed the company through these exceptional times. The latter was the son of surgeon Dr Alexander Charles Kelly and had managed the Tintara vineyards for Thomas Hardy & Sons after the sale of the property in 1876. He also owned other vineyards in McLaren Vale, which supplied fruit to Hardy’s, but by 1903, an oversupply of grapes loomed, and he built his own winery. After his employment in 1907, John Kelly adopted many winemaking principles expounded by his exceptional father. These included cool fermentation techniques and headed-down fermenters to keep the cap below the surface during primary fermentation. According to historian Geoffrey Bishop, John Kelly avoided copper coils. These principles contributed to freshness and contaminant-free wines. Château Tanunda was also a significant alma mater. Edmond Mazure’s son Alphonse Henri Mazure, better known as Harry, was an assistant manager around 1907, and Western Australia’s historic winemaker George Mann was head cellarman before moving to the Swan Valley. From 1896 to 1926, the winery cooperage was contract-managed by Christian Paul John and his sons. This remarkable barrel- making family established AP John Cooperage on Basedow Road in 1925. After the sale of Château Tanunda in 1916, John Kelly remained in the Barossa and managed his Lynvale Vineyard and Orchard near Lyndoch. In 1927, he owned 520 acres, of which 260 acres were under vine, comprising shiraz, doradillo (for brandy), pedro ximenez, and a few acres of cabernet sauvignon. Château Tanunda, Walter Reynell & Sons, Penfolds, and Gustav Gramp were particularly active in the Lyndoch area of the Barossa, with dedicated cellars for processing fruit into tin-lined bins for transport to Tanunda or Nuriootpa. The Lynvale Vineyard was eventually sold to G Gramp & Sons (Orlando Wines) in 1939.
A 1905 HISTORY SKETCH OF THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN WINE INDUSTRY BY THOMAS HARDY
The first vines were planted, I believe, by the late Mr George Stevenson on the nursery and fruit garden in Finniss Street, North Adelaide, but they were all of table varieties. The first wine grapes were procured from Sydney by the late Mr John Reynell of Reynella, and when I took employment under him in 1850, he had wine two or three years old and some of it very good, so much so that my old friend Mr Joseph Crompton and myself bought 30 gallons of it at 10/- per gallon a few years later. Mr Reynell took good care to fortify his wine with good spirit and was not ashamed to own it, but advertised his wine as ‘duly fortified’. The late Dr A.C. Kelly was, I believe, the next man to plant a vineyard south of Adelaide, at a place called Trinity, in Morphett Vale,
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