THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
a commissioner to superintend the destruction of vineyards around Geelong and as author of the Phylloxera Act . His Upper Tintara winery, which was the blueprint for many wineries in the district, including Kay Brothers and Wirra Wirra, fell into disuse. The gravity flow design and open slate-lined fermenters became a signature model for late 19th-century investors. In 2018, 95 years later, Andrew ‘Ox’ Hardy began making wine once again using those original slate fermenters. . . . The Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in New South Wales was established in 1912 and followed the construction of the Burrinjuck Dam 390 kilometres upstream between Gundagai and Canberra. Broadly, it embraced the Riverina district, which had already harnessed irrigation projects, especially rice farming. But the diversion of huge volumes of water from the Murrumbidgee River through a series of weirs, canals, and holding ponds promoted the expansion of agriculture, especially vineyards and market gardening. The first water from the scheme flowed through in 1912, and within weeks, JJ McWiIliam took up a lease at Hanwood and planted 35,000 cuttings. The towns of Griffith and Leeton, designed by architect Walter Burley Griffin, were established around 1914 and gradually attracted an influx of steamboat hands, farm workers, and settlers, especially Italians and returned soldiers after 1920.
In 1913, Château Tanunda produced 173,939 proof gallons, or 180,712 cases, of brandy from all of its distillery sites at Tanunda, Lyndoch, Rowland’s Flat, and Coonawarra. The managing director, Warren Edwards, said to the press the following year that his distillery in Coonawarra had distilled 96,000 gallons of wine into brandy. At the same meeting, he declared that ‘Château Tanunda have stuck to their guns for the past 24 years, are out to specialise in pure brandy, have come to stay, and intend to stay’. At this time, the company was producing 600,000 gallons of wine, of which 500,000 gallons were distilled for brandy production. This was before World War I and the uncertain economic times ahead. Thomas Hardy, who played an important role in steering the South Australian wine industry through its pioneering days, died on the 20th of January 1912. In addition to his remarkable career in steering Thomas Hardy & Sons and supporting the cause of South Australian wine, he was instrumental in establishing a defence against phylloxera both as
Wirra Wirra, McLaren Vale, South Australia 1912. [Wirra Wirra Collection]
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