including supplying importer Stephen Smith & Co., who owned the Hall’s and Keystone brands. After buying fruit for some years from Tatachilla, the property was purchased by Stephen Smith & Co. in 1911. Although the Tatachilla property was sometimes heralded as the largest vineyard in the colony, the largest plantings were found at the Kalimna Vineyard in the Barossa Valley. The new Tatachilla winery, completed in 1913, was an impressive investment that vinified all its wine for the export market. Keystone Burgundy, an iron-rich or ferruginous dry red wine (a shiraz mataro blend), was promoted by Stephen Smith & Co as a pick-me-up and recommended for “daily table and sideboard consumption”. Much was made of McLaren Vale’s iron-rich wines. It was apparently “delicious in flavour, not the least inky, and free from acidity”. There were other Burgundy brands too. Emu Burgundy, Harvest Burgundy (originally a Burgoyne brand), Southern Cross Burgundy (another Burgoyne brand) and Gilbey’s Rubicon Burgundy were available in the UK market into the 1960s. Another brand called Altusa Burgundy, launched somewhere in the early 1900s, claimed to be “superior in any other Australian wine on the market except Keystone.” Although it was “guaranteed pure South Australian”, little is remembered of it. In 1913 Carew Reynell and viticulturalist Gordon Cox planted the Jericho Vineyard at a rate of ten acres a day. And by 1914, the vineyards around Reynella extended to 500 acres. But Carew Reynell was also a part-time soldier. He was initially commissioned in the 16th South Australian Light Horse and then transferred to the 22nd Light Horse as a major and second-in-command. These regiments often practised their soldiering skills with manoeuvres near Bordertown, McLaren Vale, and Gawler, and used the railway network to reach their encampments. Carew Reynell was a highly skilled horseman and proved to be an inspirational leader. He landed at Gallipoli as second-in-command of the 9th South Australian Light Horse and was killed on the 27th of August 1915 on Hill 60, leading a charge on foot where half of his regiment fell as casualties. Thomas Cyril Hardy, a 22-year-old corporal from his family’s Thomas Hardy’s and Sons, was killed at Bullecourt in 1917. Lewis Wilkinson of Ryecroft was killed in action in France in the same year; there were many casualties from the area.
McLaren Vale
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