during this time established an Australian way of making wine. Max Schubert’s Grange project, whilst ground-breaking from a technical point of view, was actually steeped in late 19th century craftsmanship, a point that I only now better understand. But, of course, the good times did not last. Although Rutherglen was devastated by phylloxera in 1899 (around the same time as Rioja), the wine business got back on its feet. The solution was already known some years before, but like Rioja owners, Rutherglen producers were too busy making money and failed to protect their vineyards from the threat. So there was a hiatus, and some producers went bankrupt. But in the end other bigger events got in the way and changed the face of the Australian wine industry from being a net exporter of dry red table wine into fortified wine and brandy and causing a reshuffling of key producers. The first was in 1901, when many wine producers suffered greatly from the opening up of trade between colonies. Colonial tariffs and customs duties artificially protected some wine producers, yet many were put out of business by the influx of cheaper and often better South Australian or Victorian wine. Hunter Valley and Queensland wineries were greatly affected. This was also caused by the larger wine companies muscling their way into markets by establishing offices in Sydney. Hardy’s, Penfolds, Seppelt, Chateau Tanunda, Hans Irvine and others established a presence and lobbied Government to legislate against small wineries investing in distillation equipment, forcing some small producers to sell their crops to larger wineries or close down. Vine leaf covered in galls, from Hilgard's 1880 paper, ‘The Phylloxera or Grapevine Louse, and the Remedies for its Ravages’. Photo: Special Collections, Shields Library, University of California
106 The Wine Journal – 2023
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