THE CLARE VALLEY John Horrocks was the first white settler in the region and encouraged his servant James Green to plant the first vines in 1842 at Penwortham. Edward Burton Gleeson established a small vineyard at Inchiquin in the late 1840s, and the Jesuits at Sevenhill planted a vineyard in 1851. More vineyards appeared in the 1850s and 1860s, notably Valentine Mayr at Pomona, B. Kyiel of Rosenberg Vineyards, and Francis Treloar at Springvale (later Quelltaler). The small wine industry flourished during the 1870s with the red burgundy and claret export market to England. By 1897 the region boasted over 580 hectares of vines. The wine trade declined between 1914 and 1945, but the Clare Valley prospered once again during the 1950s and 1960s. The region comprises nowadays around 5,060 hectares of vineyards (1886 ha Shiraz, 1135 ha cabernet Sauvignon and 1056 ha riesling). Jim Barry Wines is one of the largest family-owned vignerons in the region, with over 350 ha of estate vineyards. The Clare Valley lies within the northern Mount Lofty Ranges, 140 kilometres north of Adelaide, and is the gateway to the Flinders Ranges. At its northern boundary, annual rainfall drops off dramatically at a rate of “one inch per mile”. The climate is warm to hot and dry, but moderating cool breezes funnel up through the Clare Valley’s corrugation of hills and gullies from the south during the growing season. Dry conditions during most summers promote healthy growth and very minimal disease pressure. Winter dominant rainfalls generally fill up dams and top up soil moistures. The geology of the Clare Valley belongs to the Adelaide Geosyncline, which folded into a mountain range hundreds of millions of years ago and then eroded into a corrugated range of ridges (mostly sandstone and quartzite) and valleys (siltstones, dolomites and shales). The vineyards are generally dry-grown, with precision irrigation used during drought conditions. The deep-water capacity of the valley floor has enabled vineyards to survive for over 150 years. Ancestor plantings date back to the 1850s.
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The Vintage Journal – Verticals
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