introduced for winemaking in order to improve fermentation and wine character. Thomas Hardy and Sons continued to expand during the 1870s and 1880s with a strong export focus, despite the faltering fortunes of others. With failing health, Dr Alexander C Kelly’s Tintara Wine Company and vineyards in McLaren Vale were put onto the market and purchased by Thomas Hardy in 1876. The timing was perfect. Thomas Hardy was exporting all of his red wine in bulk to Peter Bond Burgoyne by the 1880s. Already the export business was showing potential, but through luck and good timing, Thomas Hardy was able to ride the crest of a wave and became the most important figure in South Australian wine, not only enriching himself but also many other wine producers by facilitating their bulk wine exports as well. He converted an old flour mill at McLaren Vale to manage the increasing volume of wine. In 1890 Burgoyne was already importing 123,658 gallons from South Australia. By 1893 the non-vintage dated Tintara brand was the most important and recognised Australian wine in the UK market. It was also the same year Peter Bond Burgoyne visited South Australia, no doubt to coincide with the opening of Thomas Hardy’s new cellars at Mile End. The “mature, pre-eminent, full bodied”, and iron rich “ferruginous” Tintara was promoted as being of “generous quality and possessing high tonic and invigorating properties”. The wine was primarily a blend of South Australian Shiraz, Grenache and Mataro. To put Burgoyne’s power and influence into context, he was sent an open letter from South Australian vignerons (published in Adelaide’s press). They openly acknowledged his withering attack on them some months earlier in which he described South Australia’s bulk wines as “poor, vapid, characterless liquids.” They wrote. “However unpalatable your vigorous attack upon us may have been, still the fact remains that you have driven home to the minds of many of the grape growers what many of us have been advocating for years.” The signatories show the extent of Burgoyne’s reach. They were WH Gillard, S. Smith & Sons (Yalumba), S&W Sage, TF Hyland (Penfold & Co), W Salter & Son (Kalimna Vineyard), E. Burney Young, Thomas Hardy, B. Seppelt, H Dunstan & Co, GF Cleland & Co, William Patrick Auld, H, Buring & Sobels. In other words, the majority of South Australia’s wine industry! In 1893 Tintara reached a turning
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The Vintage Journal – Regional Focus
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