Parker Estate - First Growth

PARKER ESTATE – FIRST GROWTH

Parker Estate was first established by wine entrepreneur John Parker in 1985. At the time, Coonawarra was awakening from a long slumber and enjoying strong recognition by wine collectors. From around 1890 until the early 1960s, the region had failed to achieve the potential first envisioned by grazier and Coonawarra Fruit Colony pioneer John Riddoch, largely because the wines were not the styles required by the enormous South Australian burgundy export boom, which, after gathering pace during the 1890s, fizzled out during the First World War and then reignited during the 1920s and 1930s. Even so, wine from Coonawarra was used as a secret weapon by vignerons to improve and refine their bulk wines and bottlings. In 1936, the 1933 Woodley’s St Adele Claret was entered by Lieutenant-Colonel David Fulton of Woodley’s Wines into the Brewer’s Exhibition’s First Empire Competition in London and judged the best claret of the competition. George Fairbrother, the leading wine judge of the day, wrote that ‘it was one of the best Australian reds I have ever been privileged to taste’. However, this Empire recognition did not help Coonawarra, because its origins were not stated on the label. Later, after the reinstatement of wine shows around Australia in 1947, Bill Redman began winning prizes and, soon after, the rebadged St Adele Coonawarra Claret began to attract notice from wine drinkers. The story of 1962 Penfolds Bin 60A Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon Kalimna Shiraz brought more kudos to the region, as did other top-notch wines from Lindeman’s, Rouge Homme, Wynns Coonawarra Estate, and Petaluma during the 1970s and 1980s. Among the region’s investors was agri-business pioneer John Parker, who had made a name for himself with cotton farming and the establishment of Hungerford Hill in the Hunter Valley. He was also one of the architects of the 1970 takeover of the doomed Chateau Reynella, which has since been stripped of all of its once great vineyards and replaced with packing-case style dormitory housing as far as the eye can see. It is somewhat of an irony that Coonawarra has been a beneficiary of the rapid post war urbanisation of Adelaide and the construction of better railways and roads. Although

Parker Estate – First Growth