In South Australia a new railway line from Adelaide to Port Willunga, crossing through Reynella, Morphett Vale, Noarlunga, and McLaren Vale, was opened by Governor Sir Henry Galway on the 20th of January 1915. It was quite an engineering feat, with several extensive cuttings and bridges being constructed through the landscape. There were great hopes this passenger and luggage railway line would assist the development of the rich slopes and flats of the region. Already McLaren Vale was well known for mixed farming, especially market gardening, sorghum and wine production. One of the first shipments on the luggage-train was 300 hogsheads of wine destined for the export market. This railway line was gradually closed down between 1969 and 1972. Returning Soldiers from Europe, exhausted by the privations of war, started arriving back to Australia in 1917, but most after the conflict had ended in 1919. With them, many brought flu symptoms which soon began to spread around the Australian community. Pneumonic influenza, known as Spanish Flu, infected almost a third of Australia’s population and killed nearly 15,000 people. Most of them were young people between the age of 20 and 40. The crisis saw the closure of schools, churches, theatres, pubs and race meetings to encourage self-isolation and reduce the spread of the virus. Winemaker Corrina Wright’s great-grandmother Dulcie Rosa Christie, whose family grew grapes in McLaren Vale and sold their harvest to the Emu Wine Company, wrote a diary during this period. On one occasion she writes about her brother Tom who died of influenza after the end of hostilities while waiting for a ship home from Cairo in December 1918. She then notes the arrival of Spanish Flu in South Australia on the 29th of January 1919 and the first death in McLaren Vale just a week later. Dulcie Rosa Christie survived the pandemic and lived until she was 96. Although a pall of grief hung in the air, Australian vignerons were generally optimistic about the future of the industry. It knew that it had to adapt to new market conditions and expectations. Already new vineyards were being planted in McLaren Vale, The Barossa, the Murray Valley and elsewhere to meet the demands of the future market. Although the Export Bounty Act was not finalised until 1924, discussions about tariff preferences between the British Government and Federal ministers during and after the war were generally seen as something that would help the wine industry to prosper. The threat of prohibition was staved
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The Vintage Journal – Regional Focus
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