STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 692/166

Full transcript of an interview with

JOHN VICKERY

on 22 June 2000

by Rob Linn

Recording available on CD

Access for research: Unrestricted

Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study

Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library

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OH 692/166 JOHN VICKERY

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

This transcript was donated to the State Library. It was not created by the J.D. Somerville Oral History Collection and does not necessarily conform to the Somerville Collection's policies for transcription.

Readers of this oral history transcript should bear in mind that it is a record of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The State Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the interview, nor for the views expressed therein. As with any historical source, these are for the reader to judge.

This transcript had not been proofread prior to donation to the State Library and has not yet been proofread since. Researchers are cautioned not to accept the spelling of proper names and unusual words and can expect to find typographical errors as well.

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OH 692/166 TAPE 1 - SIDE A NATIONAL WINE CENTRE, WOLF BLASS FOUNDATION, ORAL HISTORY PROJECT. Interview with John Vickery on 22nd June, 2000, at Tanunda. Interviewer: Rob Linn. John, let’s begin at the beginning. What about some of your personal background? Where were you born and bred? JV: I was an Adelaide guy. My father was an educationist—Port Adelaide. He

ran Le Fevre’s Tech High School. And I guess I was a product of the 50’s.

Didn’t know what to do so I was sent off to Roseworthy.

So what year were you born, John? JV: ‘32. So 1950, you could get Commonwealth scholarships pretty easily

then. Packed off to Roseworthy and did agriculture. And then you could get

extensions to scholarships so it was suggested I do Oenology. So I had a five

year holiday at Roseworthy!

So to speak. JV: Yeah, so to speak. Tell me a bit about the training at Roseworthy, John. JV: Oh, it was pretty basic in those days. There was very little written, or

printed matter, so most of it we had to write down in lectures. The head

lecturer was Rex Kuchel. And I can remember the chemistry teacher was Sam

Twartz And that was about it. Oh, viticulture was—oh, golly! I can’t

remember his name.

Anyway, there was six students in each year. And we were on the end of the

sort of the rehabs—the guys after the War. We still have an influence with

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those guys and—but we spent four years living in the Army huts. It was the

accommodation in those days.

So you came after, if you like, the Brian Barrys and that crew? JV: Yeah, they finished sort of—well, Brian was I think—I’m not sure. Most of

those guys were the late 40’s, yeah.

So by the time you came in they’d just gone out, if you like, to work and that Roseworthy influence was beginning to permeate the industry Australia wide. JV: Exactly.

Was it a pretty encouraging sort of course to be involved with? Interesting? JV: Well, we had a lot of fun. (Laughter) Compared to today, wine education

that oenologists get, it was pretty basic. But we did follow that Fornachon era.

We followed the era of Alan Hickinbotham, of course. So the ground work had

been done in the industry. The technical advances had begun. And certainly

when I came in the industry the analyses were very basic. Certainly you did

the basic things and that was it. Some companies, of course, had more

expertise, such as Beckwith at Penfolds. And Orlando had, I guess, very good

laboratory expertise.

(Interruption) So you were saying, John, that the industry at the time was just beginning to go through a phase of technical advance with the Ray Beckwiths and the things happening at Orlando. JV: And certainly Yalumba.

I came into the industry—I think I was interviewed for two jobs—one was

here—by Reg Shipster and Leo Buring in January ‘55. And there weren’t many

positions available in the industry. There were two of us applied here. I think

there was a job going at Griffith with someone like Rossettos or one of those

companies. The interest was—well, Leo Buring, of course, he’d just bought

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this place and was developing it as—he was a major table wine maker.

Whereas most of the industry was 80% fortified. And he was a leading, I

guess, technocrat in table wine manufacture.

By the time you came on board had he moved into the same pressure fermentation as Gramps had been at Orlando and Kronberger had been at Yalumba? JV: No, certainly not. No. Orlando began that in the mid 50’s -

‘52. JV: No, we were still fairly basic in our winemaking techniques and equipment.

We didn’t have refrigeration. We didn’t have stainless steel. We didn’t have

pressure tanks.

John, tell me what this place was like here when you first came. How did it function? JV: Well, I was the sort of chemist—assistant winemaker. Reg Shipster was

the manager winemaker. And I think there was something like five or six cellar

hands. And winemaking for a winemaker in those days was rubber boots and,

you know, a hard broom. Yeah, it was all fairly basic so winemakers in that era

learnt to do it the hard way. And it was all concrete.

But Leo Buring built a winery which was, I guess, reasonably technically

advanced in making white table wine. Quick juice separation etc. But we didn’t

get refrigeration until—it was a public company (Leo Buring Holdings) and he

was trying to build his dream of a chateau winery, and he didn’t pay a dividend

and, of course, he was a sitting duck for Lindemans. In the late 50’s they

started marketing sparkling Rinegolde, which was being produced by Ian

Hickinbotham—Kaiser Stuhl. And this started to begin to bring some good

returns in. And Lindemans were looking for a base—a production base—in the

Barossa, and so they made a takeover bid and somewhere(?) became part of

Lindemans in ‘62. And Buring had died in ‘61 actually.

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So, John, was the winery itself basically a gravity fed system still? The old Barossa model or had he - JV: No, pumps. There were pumps, yes, certainly. But the old piston type

Whitehill pumps and the odd centrifugal. Lot of underground storage, which

was very much the name of the game with concrete in those days. Certainly

kept the wine cooler. But most of the concrete was all built by Buring in the

early 50’s.

John, tell me what you would’ve learnt from Shipster and Buring about the making of table wines. How did they treat you? JV: Well, I suppose you were given the basics, and Buring was one of the

guys who believed in free sulphur content of table wines, whereas the industry

still—they were still talking total sulphur. Red winemaking was fairly, I guess,

consistent through the industry. There was nothing remarkable there.

Malolactic fermentations happened if they happened and you started vintage

with a, you know, flagon of yeast and built it up from that. You might’ve

changed the culture a couple of times but not like we do it today.

We didn’t have inert gas. That came in the early 60’s, as did refrigeration. And

we certainly had the equipment to be able to get quick juice separation for

white table wine. You’d put in a French type COQ crusher, and we had

overhead draining tanks with slatted bottoms. But it was still basket press, as

most of the industry was except for a few of the horizontal Vaslin type presses

that were in use. Orlando had one I think. Yalumba had one. Otherwise the

industry was basket pressing.

And then we got our first airbag presses, which were made in Australia as a

copy of the Wilmes type airbag press. We got those in ‘63/’64.

And who were your suppliers? Who were your growers locally? Were they Barossa people or were you bringing in grapes from further afield? JV: Buring had some vineyards. Here at the winery, and another vineyard out

at—on Seppeltsfield Road, called the Bultawilta vineyard. And of course had

Florita at Watervale, which was predominantly planted by Buring for sherry.

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We had a fino sherry called Florita, which—we had quite a large solera here—

and it was one of my loves, and still is—and he planted Florita originally with

sherry varieties. Lot of Palomino and Pedro Ximines and White Hermitage.

And of course that was replanted in—I think they started replanting in ‘63 with

Riesling. And over the years until 1977 it was replanted totally to Riesling.

So they were the vineyards he had. But getting back to suppliers. Individual

growers. We didn’t have contracts in the early days. Growers were only too

happy to sell their fruit to someone. And the aftermath of the earlier 40’s

when—I’m not sure how many growers we had on our books then. Probably

50 to 100. And we used to actually—when Riesling became the recognised

noble variety (and it still is, of course) -

You are known for that, aren’t you? (Laughter) JV: In the 60’s we certainly canvassed growers in the Eden Valley area and

elsewhere for Riesling. And competition was on to buy grapes in that era, of

the 60’s.

Actually coming back to that love of yours, John, with Riesling, and those of us who drink it, what attracted you about that grape? Why was it such a wonderful grape to play with? Because Buring himself had had a lot of fun with it I think. JV: Well, not really. There was no Riesling virtually in New South Wales—true

Riesling. Sorry, Reg Shipster. Reg Shipster had some fun with it. JV: Yeah, I guess we started getting reasonable quantities of Riesling in the

early 60’s. It was only about ‘63 that we started to get quantities in a

commercial quantity. We were also—of course Lindemans bought most of

Stanleys vintage in those days. So we saw some of that vintage for our wines

as well. But I guess in those days Reg was more administrative and building

the winery and supervising vineyards and supervising growers. And I think our

grower list got up to something like 250 growers, like most of the companies in

the Barossa. All small growers.

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So I guess—to get back to your question about the love of Riesling, it’s just

something that happened. It was really the only premium variety available.

Didn’t have Chardonnay. We had some other white—Madeira which is, of

course, Semillon. Things like Sherry, White hermitage (Trebbiano). There was

another odd one called Ruschette. It was only planted here at Chateau

Leonay.

There’s still a bit of that around. JV: Is there?

Yeah. JV: R.U.S.C.H.E.T.T.E.

Yes. JV: But basically Riesling became the pre-eminent quality style, and so the

industry went for it until the usurper, Chardonnay, came along in the 80’s.

What is there about Riesling that attracts you though? I mean, your wines definitely show a certain trend to me, as a drinker of them, that—it’s a style that’s become yours, if you like, too. But what was there in the grape that just gave you such pleasure to produce those wines? Because the older Barossa style, like Rudi Kronberger stuff, in the 40’s particularly, was a very flinty style. And yet you’d come in with the fruit. What - JV: I guess that was the antioxidative handling. Certainly quick juice

separation. Refrigeration. And a lot of the companies were pretty slow on the

uptake to pick up the technology that Orlando was using and Lindemans in

particular. (The inference is that Lindemans and Orlando were more advanced

technologically in white wine making than all others.) So we were hand in glove

with Lindemans in developing white winemaking technology, which they were

doing on their Hunter wines—in the Hunter. This all happened in the early

60’s. Whereas I think the other companies were a bit slow on the uptake. We

were using ascorbic acid and certainly, you know, gas blanketing them, and

gentle handling. Preventing air contact. Whereas I guess the older technique

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was high sulphur levels. Because we cut our sulphur levels dramatically, which

made softer, more fruit driven styles. People used to say, ‘Oh, you can’t do it.

They won’t live’. But they seemed to have lived.

Yeah, I was thinking of that first Stelvin Riesling that Peter Wall made at Pewsey, and that’s going strong. JV: Yeah. It’s great to see those wines and I think that we convinced our

marketers to go back and reconsider them a couple of years ago. And it’s

developing quickly. The Clare Valley winemakers are now on the bandwagon.

We’re actually getting an antique green bottle this year, which will be great,

because we’ve only had the cheaper light green bottle up until now. So you’ll

probably see quite a few Rieslings coming out of the vintage 2000, more in

Stelvin.

Oh, that’s a great thing too. Now, John, just reverting to those years in the early 60’s when you were here in your younger years, were there some real characters around the place? JV: Yeah. It was a fairly small industry in those days. I guess—I don’t think

we put the same input that is expected of winemakers in the last decade. We

certainly had plenty of fun times. Bacchus Club functions etc.

What—with Alf Wark presiding? JV: Yes, Alf was the President/Secretary for many years. I think the industry

as a whole, because it was family based, I think there was more interaction

between the companies and the personnel who worked for the companies.

This certainly is today but it’s such a large industry and so many people within

it that it’s more, I think—you get isolated groups whereas—not coming together

in a total. I don’t know how many members of the Oenology Society. There

must be about 700 these days. So many winemakers involved. But sure, we

had our—probably too much time spent elsewhere and not putting our nose to

the grindstone in those days. It came down I think—the effort we made in

white wine making and Riesling making was just an interest and wanting to get

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some of those gold medals that other people were getting. And Orlando were

certainly at the helm of the Riesling show list in those days—in the early 60’s.

But we were delighted when we got our first gold medals in ‘63. I think we got

two or three that year. It was a great thing to happen to someone—well, a

winery that was so small with fairly basic equipment.

Actually, John, I was going to ask you about the show circuit and the medals. Was that something that you were very keen on as a winery? To push for the medals and to raise the profile of your own product? JV: Oh, yes, it was pretty important. I think to any winemaker in the industry

the show circuit was certainly a place where you sought recognition of what

you were doing, yeah. I think it still is but it’s a pretty big scale these days.

Did that show circuit also help to boost the industry’s quality in any way? JV: I’m sure it did, yes. Because it gave winemakers an opportunity to see

what other people were doing. It was a great forum for comparing wines. And

then people were interested to know what other people were doing. So

eventually the industry sort of caught up on white wine making, and some of

the techniques became standard in the late 60’s/early 70’s.

(Interruption) John, just going back—this is really to the start of our discussion that we’ll return to for a minute. Talking a bit about how you came to be involved in it and you said that in your family at least dentistry was mentioned for a time. JV: It was a horrifying thought. I was only too happy to get on my motorbike

and go to Roseworthy, yes, and do agriculture.

You were saying, too, that drinking habits were fairly different in those days. JV: Well, certainly the industry, as you know, was 80% fortified, and parents

knowledge of the industry was a decanter of sherry on the sideboard. My first

vintage was at Emu Wine Company in 1951.

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Down at Morphett Vale. JV: Morphett Vale with John Guinand and—Colin Haselgrove. Not Ron.

Colin Haselgrove, and Morgan Yeatman was there then.

And Emu were the great export firm, weren’t they? JV: Yes. They had a very technically advanced winery. They were making

fino sherry in Hume pipes with—by totally temperature humidity controlled

environment in a huge room. Hume pipes with tent-like covers on them so the

condensation ran down and didn’t disturb the film. And they were exporting all

that sherry to England. They were into cold-stabilisation of course because the

English market—very big refrigeration plants. And I used to get on my motor

bike at sort of six o’clock in the morning from Largs Bay and ride down to

Morphett Vale each day, and earning the princely sum of something like £15 a

week, which was big money in those days. Used to work through until about

nine o’clock at night.

But I guess I was first introduced to fortified wine—in those days the industry,

when people knocked off, had a schooner of muscat or port or so on. I used to

line up for my schooner of sherry and jump on my motor bike at nine o’clock at

night and tear back to Largs Bay. (Laughter in voice)

The second vintage we went to—that was in the Hunter. Went up and picked

grapes. Couldn’t get a job in a winery. Because Harold Tulloch was in the

course, and we both had AJS motorbikes, so we rode to the Hunter. He went

home and I picked grapes for Tullochs and ended up working for a concrete

contractor, building kerbs—roadside kerbs—to get enough money to get home

again.

And the next vintage, I went to the west. Worked at Valencia with Chas Kelly.

And then, of course, Jack Mann was running Houghton. And that was really

our first introduction to white table wine. And I was staying with an uncle, my

father’s brother, who was an executive of McRobertson-Miller Airlines at

Greenmount and we introduced him—I always remember that he used to call

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the white burgundy, white Bur Gun Dee. It was his introduction to white wine,

too.

And we rode our motorbikes over—Harold and I. In those days I think the

bitumen ended at Port Augusta and began at Norseman. But we came back—

put our bikes on a ship to come back. They used to have the coastal

steamers—the Westralia and the Manoora. So we came back on boat. And I

brought back, I remember, two pannier bags full of white burgundy to introduce

my parents to Houghton white burgundy. And that was—I think it was

unlabelled in those days. I think he was selling it as cellar door—his white

burgundy style. I don’t think it had really been marketed. That was 1953.

So it was unlabelled at that point? JV: Yeah. Might’ve had a jam jar sticker on it. So that was my third vintage.

Fourth vintage was with Tony Nelson at Woodleys. And believe it or not, there

was the wild Ray Ward working there, and Morgan Yeatman. They were both

working for Nelson.

Yeah, I know Ray Ward was there. JV: I’ve always got this vision of Wardy loading containers of carton wine out

there, stripped to the waist. You know, virtually loading them himself. He was

a character.

He was an organiser, wasn’t he? JV: Yeah. I know he’s told me he liked a clean, well-run cellar, and he really pushed it. Well, Nelsons there at Woodleys were pushing many things at the time, weren’t they? I mean, Tony Nelson had begun a push into table wine. He was into the new type of labels. So I think Wytt Morro was only just going. He got whipped in to do some of Est. JV: Woodleys Est. Woodleys Est.

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JV: Dreadful stuff. It was fortified. It was about 26% alcohol, in the old terms.

26% proof. So that would be about, oh, I suppose about 16% by volume. 15,

16. And he used to actually—he used to get around the licensing laws

somehow. He used to supposedly go around and take orders. He had a

private trade and he had vans, and private customers, and they delivered door

to door. I don’t know how he got around the licensing.

He was also into table wines, wasn’t he? Nelson. JV: Yes. Well, he had Coonawarra Estate. And the old silver mine—I

remember that Morgan used to say, ‘Oh, get yourself a bottle of red for lunch’.

So we’d go into the silver mine and get a bottle of 1948 Coonawarra. There

were masses of bottled wines stored in there.

Of course, then they sold to Wynns in 1950 because we went down—was it

‘51? We went down to help Ian Hickinbotham prune because the

changeover—yeah, they exchanged—I think it was in the middle of winter and

no pruning had been done and Ian was just sort of freshly out of Roseworthy—

’49—and he was going to run this place for Sam Wynn. So he appealed to the

college, if anyone wanted some pruning work during the holidays?’ So a few

of us went down and learnt how to prune vines in the middle of Coonawarra

winter. Some funny stories then. Wardy was a wild man.

Tell us about it. (Laughter) JV: Ian had an Army jeep. That was his conveyance. And there was a lot of

sheep stealing going on down through the South East in those days because,

as you know, wool reigned supreme in the South East. And that’s why you

couldn’t get labour to prune because the people on the—the sheep barons

were all pretty wealthy and nobody was interested in working in a vineyard.

The industry being on its knees, of course.

I remember one night we went down to—on the fling at Mount Gambier. There

were about three or four of us—must’ve been five of us in this jeep. And

coming back we were bailed up by the Police at a roadblock. They were

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actually stopping vehicles, searching for sheep stealers. And I think we were

fairly primed about one o’clock in the morning. In an open jeep in the middle of

winter at Mount Gambier was bloody cold. And there we were huddled under

blankets in the back, and this Policeman poking his head in the jeep, ‘No’, and

we all went, ‘Baa’. (Laughter)

But Wardy was a wild man. Anyway, that was our sojourn to Coonawarra

when we were students. But there we were, back with Wardy at Woodleys in—

must’ve been 1954 I did the vintage there.

So eventually you end up back up at Tanunda - JV: Yes. - with Ray in time. JV: Yes, in time took a job here. More sobering influence. Yeah, that’s right. And we talked too, John, about the show scene, and also a bit about the social scene. But was there any sharing of ideas here among the vignerons throughout the valley? Was there a type of valley camaraderie, if you like? JV: Oh, sure. I think everyone was watching everyone else, although Orlando

was very secretive about their operations. You really—it was very difficult even

to be shown over the place. Colin was so protective of what their—their new

equipment and their new technology that they had imported.

Günter was here by then. JV: Yeah, Günter, yeah. And another chap, Henry Deinhard. He was the

Seitz technician. Was out here for two or three years when they first installed

their first counter pressure bottling line, which we eventually got one here in

1969.

I think there was an exchange of ideas. We were always calling into other

wineries and having a drink. I guess Saltram was a frequent drop-in, as you’d

expect.

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Well, Lehmann was there by that time? JV: Yes. Sure. I think he went there in the late - ‘59. JV: That’s right because we all—one of the other meeting places was the

Junior Chamber of Commerce—Jaycees—and most of us were members of

that. Ian Hickinbotham, and certainly Lehmann. And it was a training ground

for public speaking and so on. And we all went off to a convention at

Shepparton. Lehmann had this brand new Holden FE sedan. There was Ian

Hick, and Lehmann, a mate of mine, and another local chap, Arnold Geyer.

Yes, that was a trip we shouldn’t talk any more about. (Laughter) The less

said the better.

And certainly I guess we—Penfolds was more of a closed—yeah, there wasn’t

much exchange with Penfolds. Nor Orlando. But certainly the other

companies, Yalumba and Seppelts.

Peter Wall would’ve been at Yalumba by then, I think. JV: 60’s. Yeah, 60’s. JV: 60’s, yes. So you’ve got Wardy, and Peter Lehmann, yourself and Wall. It’s, if you like, definitely an age group, isn’t it? You were all pretty young at the time. JV: Wardy was looking after Vintners at vintage time. That’s right. And mainly fortifieds I think. JV: Yes. The flagons of port and muscat and sherry were sitting up there.

And the norm in those days, and we used to do it here, you’d have the

flagons—because most of it was manual work—I think the grapes were forked

five times by the time you’d finished with them. So, you know, fortified wine

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was just there for anyone whenever they wanted to have one, which didn’t help

obviously the health of a lot of the cellar workers. And it became a problem

with some of them.

What? Even here? JV: Yes. We had one guy who—with the underground concrete tanks, your

table wines, you kept them full, and to prevent bulling you’d heavily sulphur the

surface. And this guy would resort to any measures to get a yo-yo of some sort

of siphon. He’d even get reeds out of the creek. And we were forever finding

yo-yos around the place. But this particular day—they apparently knew that he

was frequenting a couple of tanks which were very good so they sulphured this

up to an incredible level, and this poor guy took a guts full of this highly

sulphured wine and was spluttering through the cellar. I don’t think he ever did

it again. (Laughter) But it was a problem in the industry certainly, and mostly

precipitated by fortified wine. I think most of the large companies had their

problems with staff.

Now there’s a longstanding tradition, I believe, that had been there for morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, was the whole idea that smoko, or whatever, you had your butcher and away you went. I think it was yesterday—was it Günter telling us about the hoses that—Orlando. Orlando—Colin had decreed that you weren’t allowed to have your butcher, you see. And Günter said that they found that all the hoses from the taps in the cellars got shorter and shorter and it wasn’t until they checked the vats that they found the hose some years later. (Laughter) JV: That’d be right. There’s always a problem trying to find your siphon. But

the industry—I guess it was a reflection that you provided—the industry thought

it was doing a service by providing something to fire the blokes up to keep

them working. And a lot of the grape tossing off the trucks, we used to employ

guys—the sugar cane cutters would come down from Queensland during the

vintage. They were quite happy to sit on the back of a truck for the whole of

the day, and if you ever suggested that they had a spell they’d get quite

insulted, you know.

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It used to be actually a bit of a ceremony. The winemakers had to toss off the

first load of the vintage and the last load of the vintage. You can imagine the

first load of the vintage was usually a Riverland truck, and a big truck in those

days was seven tons. And we didn’t have tipping facilities at all. It all had to be

forked off. So you broke yourself early into vintage by tossing off a load of

grapes.

In your first years here, John, were there still horse-drawn drays coming in? JV: Yep. And lots of lovely old buckboards, and all sorts of vehicles. There

was still horse-drawn vehicles. They petered out fairly quickly. But there was

some lovely old trucks. I know one particular grower from Gomersal—

Henschke—and that truck I think was still going—someone said it was still

around the place 15/20 years ago. Still working.

TAPE 1 - SIDE B Well, John, we’ve been talking about some of the conditions—the working conditions, if you like—for people, and maybe the problems that came, and the thrill of vintage. What were some of the changes that began to come in in that 60’s era that you think either affected the industry technologically or pushed it along in some way? JV: Oh, there’s no doubt about it. Equipment. And it made a big difference to

us once we got some good presses for white winemaking. Our first

compressor for refrigeration was a little 20 ton unit and a two tube Gasquet

Ultracooler. Certainly refrigeration made a big difference.

Stainless steel. Better hygiene. We were all concrete tanks before. They’re

still in use and they’re all fairly new concrete tanks but you’ve still got—could

get taints, particularly in white table wine. All our early Rieslings were made in

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concrete, amazingly. We didn’t get stainless until the mid 60’s. So all those

early Rieslings were made in underground concrete tanks.

Inert gas. The first inert gas was in cylinders. Then we were made when we

got a bulk unit in about the late 60’s. About 1970.

Centrifuges, of course. First came in—small ones around the industry. Our

first one here was the Westfalia SAKP, which was quite a big machine. That

was in 1973. So clarification, refrigeration, better storage, probably a better

understanding of winemaking too. Certainly microbiologically. We went

through that dreadful era of preventing malolactics. I don’t know if anyone’s

spoken about -

No. Talk about that. JV: Certainly attempts—when we made—red winemaking in those days was

almost a—we handled the wine, and made the wine, with the intention of

preventing malolactic. So then the industry, although we had excellent bottling

supervision and micro analysis by plating and so on, the industry—I know we

did—thought we were getting sterile filtration because the cultures (the plates

that were taken of the bottled wine) didn’t show any activity. But as it turned

out, the media they were using for culturing these—of the wine—to test for

bacteria was not sufficient for the bacteria to grow. So the bacteria were there

but they weren’t being evidenced in the media. So we ended up in the 70’s

with masses of bottled wine which underwent malolactic fermentation. It was

quite a disaster. And I’m sure it wasn’t just peculiar to our own organisation.

So Coonawarra reds were filtered early. Not a high sulphur level. Certainly a

sulphur level, which virtually killed any opportunity of malolactic happening.

And were wood aged without malolactic happening, albeit there wasn’t much

new oak around then. We didn’t really see new oak until the 80’s.

So what were you using? Used casks of some sort? JV: Yeah. There was a certain amount of—well, you just reused the casks.

But the industry wasn’t spending much money on oak in those days, and

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certainly most of our oak were large cask. And we’ve still got a few casks here

which—just purely for aesthetic effect. I think we had something like 250 oak

casks on the site here in the heyday. And most of them are table wine.

They’ve come from out of our Sydney and Melbourne cellars. So they’ve been

used for storage of white wines and red wine. So we were getting maturation

in our red wines but no oak influence. You were getting some maturation

effect.

White wines, we were coming in from the Hunter in the early days. Brought in

here for bottling. Because we had a bottling line in Sydney and in Melbourne.

They were both closed down in the late 50’s and all the bottling was done here,

and the place was developed as a packaging centre.

But certainly, getting back to winemaking techniques, it was recognised that we

weren’t getting sterile filtration at bottling point so the industry then, of course,

reverted to encouraging malolactics, and I think there’s been great advances in

control of that side of winemaking. Microbiological control. And we’ve got such

a marvellous resource of cultures to do it. So it’s all very easy these days, you

know. We’ve got the resource to be able to culture your wines, same as yeast.

We had one—predominantly we used, right through the 60’s and 70’s, a yeast

called 729, which was a wine research yeast. It was found after a while that we

were getting increasing levels of VA being produced in white wines.

What’s VA? JV: Volatile acid. And this was showing up quite remarkably in Rieslings. It

varied with districts but used to be more so with Padthaway Rieslings for some

reason.

So then, I guess in the late 70’s, we had the introduction of new yeasts. And I

think the industry—was one of the major reformations in the industry was the

range of yeasts available for fermentation. So we then—the famous R2 that

Croser started using, which is still in use today. But the problem was really this

VA production in both reds and whites, which was occurring with this old—and

it was a mutation effect with the yeast over the years.

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Those early Buring whites, some of those test reasonably high. It’s quite

surprising. It’s an integral part of the style of the wine. As they age it gets a bit

more objectionable. (Laughter)

John, you mentioned that there really wasn’t a lot of oak in the reds in the 60’s, to speak of. Who would’ve really brought that in? I mean, would that’ve been Blass coming in and bringing some different ideas? Or who would’ve brought that sort of oak idea in? JV: I guess Wolfie with the wines he was making and getting acclaim.

Certainly we were using oak. Devised methods of chipping in those days. And

we were actually—had a chipping machine here which we’d take staves and—

unlike chips, they were peelings. We’d cut them down along the grain. We’d

have short sections of staves. It was a pneumatic machine. And we’d put

those chips into our oak casks. Into the 500 gallon and 350 gallon oak casks.

It was a bit of a job getting them out. Bit of a job getting the wine out, too.

Because you’d take the trap (door) out of the cask and put the chips in, then

put the wine in. And to get the wine out again, you had to wiggle your hose

because you emptied from the top through the bung-hole—inch and a half

hose—and you’d have a bit of coarse sieve on the bottom of the hose to

prevent the chips being sucked out. You’d wiggle it down through to get the

last of the wine out.

But I guess that was our introduction of—our first method of getting oak flavour

into wine. Whereas most of our hogsheads—in those days, puncheons. There

weren’t many barriques around. Mostly hogsheads and puncheons. We’d use

those for something up to ten years. Well, these days, we’d toss them out at

four to five years. So there wasn’t much oak character being—and the industry

wasn’t geared up to spending—to budgeting—immense amounts of money that

they do for table wine production today.

Well, that’s linked to the fact that table wines just weren’t popularly consumed I suppose at the time. JV: The change had taken place but I think that the consumer hadn’t learned

to recognise, or expect, the complexity of red wines, and we hadn’t got into oak

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matured white wines to any extent, apart from what we did with containers for

white wine, such as Semillons from the Hunter River. They all sat in oak until

you were ready to bottle them. But it was only a short period. So really it was

an education thing that the consumer began to expect oak complexity, even in

his white wines. And then the Chardonnay explosion happened and we started

using more and more oak for Chardonnay maturation and fermentation.

What sort of dates are we talking for Chardonnay? Late 60’s/70’s? JV: No, we’re looking at early 80’s. I think the first Chardonnay we produced,

or bottled, was in 1980. Our first Chardonnay out of the South East was ‘79.

Small quantity. And then I think our first commercial bottling was a blend of

Coonawarra Padthaway. So the industry was only really planting

Chardonnay—I think the statistics are something like 1500 tons in 1981 or 2,

and today, what are we? 230,000 tons. So they were the sort of volumes that

were around the early 80’s. So it really only happened in the mid 80’s—the

larger quantities that were being marketed.

So that means the first vineyard plantings, for example, for Chardonnay are mid 70’s. Probably around that era. JV: Yep. Now, who’s bringing back those ideas to Australia? Is it young winemakers? Viticulturists? How is that grape coming into Australia to be used? JV: Well, we got—there was Chardonnay in New South Wales but we virtually

didn’t have any in this State. So I guess it took a while for it to go through—

when you import—your procedure for quarantine. It took some time before

commercial quantities were available. But certainly the Chardonnay was

sourced originally I think from the States—United States. And the clones, we

had three or four—I think there might’ve been three clones initially used in

Australia. So it took some time to propagate up from that material that came

into Australia. So it was a gradual process.

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But getting back to who initiated it, I guess more people were travelling

overseas, became aware of French Chardonnays, and here was a variety that

we should be developing along with Riesling—as well as Riesling.

So is it this mobility, John, of winemakers that’s just beginning at this point that starts to bring the ideas in? JV: Sure. Sure. Did you travel at that time? JV: Only privately in ‘75. We spent some time overseas. That was my first

exposure to European winemaking, yes.

Did that change your view of things at all? JV: Oh, certainly. Places became—you know, when you read about the

industry these places become of more value when you visit them. So certainly

it meant a lot to me to have visited—oh, we spent most of our time in Spain,

Germany and France, travelling around. Fairly laidback because I’d just

recently remarried and it was a wonderful long honeymoon.

(Interruption) So for you it was a fresh new experience, John? JV: Yes, sure. To see the places that people had—which you’d read about

and people had talked about. I think of course other industry personalities had

done quite a deal of travelling. But I think the Australian industry was looking

for new varieties apart from—we really only had Riesling and Semillon. A little

Gewurztraminer of course. Not a great deal. That came in that era. Not that I

went over and came back and applied any winemaking techniques that I’d

seen—because I didn’t work in any wineries. We did quite a deal of visiting on

equipment side. Packaging equipment etc. It was quite an experience. Sure.

Is this about the time, too, that the promotion of wine and the writing about wine begins to move in Australia?

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JV: Yeah. When did Len Evans start writing? The 60’s I think. In The

Bulletin. In The Bulletin. JV: Frank Margan certainly, which was giving Australian consumers some

insight into wines and what they were about and what wines were available,

certainly. I guess that happened—I think we all had our share of write-ups by

Len in those days.

Compared to today it looks quite small, doesn’t it? JV: Yes. Well, it was. Certainly. The amount of written word today, it’s a

battle to keep up with all the publications.

About that time I think the other interesting thing about the industry is the cask

orientation. And certainly I went to Coonawarra in ‘74. Because all these

plantings at Padthaway and Coonawarra were coming into bearing—the new

planting. Particularly Padthaway. Something had to be done. They had a

small winery at Rouge Homme which could process something like 500 tons of

red, and that was it. So I was relocated down there and we built a winery. But

under great difficulty, may I say, because the industry was so orientated to

cask production that Lindemans embarked on Karadoc at that stage (about the

same year) and all the money was being poured into four litre production. And

I think we operated for about eighteen months with all our tanks with no

catwalks. And these were incredibly tall tanks. They were red fermenters,

which we used as jetting tanks to ferment in and jet out. They were 20 ton and

40 ton tanks. But very tall, skinny tanks.

And I think ‘74 was a very wet year. All these tanks had been brought in. No

facilities. A ladder up the side, and you’d have a rope from neck to neck. Very

steep cones. And I can always remember Ray Kidd coming down and

wondering what in the hell we were doing, jumping from tank to tank, sort of

servicing—filling the tanks and operating these things, and jetting them out

from the top with no catwalks. But that was purely because everyone was

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diverted to building a four litre in a box winery and we were having to battle on

with this sort of primitive winemaking conditions. But it changed.

The casks, though, brought wine to a lot of people who wouldn’t have got to it otherwise, do you think? JV: Yes, it certainly did, but it also brought the demise of some of the

companies. And as we know they weren’t making much money out of the

production. And certainly Lindemans weren’t making any money, and Philip

Morris eventually put the company on the market, albeit I guess in retrospect I

bet they regret it because it was just before the rise in the industry in 1990.

Yeah, they must be regretting it with the downturn in their cigarette profitability.

What was I going to say?

The other thing at that time was that we eventually did start to see some—

getting back to the oak thing—started to see some new oak coming in the

industry in the late 70’s. Because it was recognised that if we were going to

improve our reds—what does Wolfie say? Or was it Johnnie Glaetzer? No

wood, no good.

Oh, that’s Wolf. Oh, well, both of them I suppose. No wood, no good, yeah. JV: But it’s nice to see that we’ve come right around the circle and got away

from aggressive American oak and we’re making better wines and more subtle

wines these days.

And I believe that some Australian wineries are actually investing in forests in France. JV: Really?

Yeah. So I hear. There’s a future. (Laughs) And so, John, through the 70’s and 80’s, what are the changes that are actually—if you like, for yourself—improving winemaking along the way. You said that the 60’s and the early 70’s there’s a technical advance. What are the advances on from then? Still technical or other things?

25

JV: I think a greater understanding, greater knowledge, and certainly I think

the young winemakers of today are very intense in their wanting to know about

wine—understanding wine—and I think there’s a lot more knowledge certainly

available. And they are knowledgeable. Whether they are as prepared to put

their rubber boots on, as we used to do, is another thing. But still that’s another

topic. And I think it’s—certainly the expertise is there and the knowledge is

there, and the equipment’s there. So we should—well, we’ve proven we’re

doing it right.

So the doing it right has really come through export, do you think? The proven fact that the export market’s opening up? JV: Well, it’s certainly brought the volume. Whether it would’ve made any

great difference to the quality of the wine we’re making—certainly volume-wise.

And it’s certainly brought more money into the industry by way of expansion.

But some of the expansion in the industry is a bit horrific. And you only have to

walk around this place to see what’s happened.

You mean the winery or the viticultural side? JV: Both. Yes, both. Winemaking has to have kept up with viticulture. I

guess viticulturally, I think we’re doing it a lot better than we used to. We’ve got

better knowledge there as well.

When one thinks back, the Barossa, there was hardly an irrigated vine in the

Barossa in the 60’s. That only happened in the mid 70’s. That people started

using a bit of drip around the place.

That’s Australia wide, isn’t it, at the time? I think the Southern Vales were probably some of the first people to look at working with (sounds like, reed) irrigation systems, for instance. JV: True. So that’s a very, very—gosh, it’s not that long ago, is it? Twenty-five years ago.

26

JV: And we only had really irrigation at Coonawarra for frost control. It

happened to be there as their method of control. Irrigation was put into

Padthaway with water winches, which was a method of getting water out.

Albeit it had its problems. And I think the current concern, talking about current

problems, is the incredible development in some of the dry land areas such as

the Barossa and the way—how are we going to keep up the water supply?

And we have all our problems of the aquifers—underground water at the

moment. And how much can we keep drawing from the Murray. Although the

water’s available licence-wise but you wonder. You wonder. Certainly Clare

Valley is very dependent on surface water and rainfall. And you certainly saw

that the other day when I went up, that a lot of the plantings have been

struggling because they’ve got insufficient water. It’s marvellous to have, you

know, a good crop in the third year but you wonder whether some of these

developments are going to reach that sort of stage if they haven’t got sufficient

water.

So they’re just some of the issues you can see coming up now, John? JV: Yes.

And looking back, has it been a wonderful industry to be involved with? JV: Well, I guess we’ve been lucky. We’ve came in at—we’ve seen incredible

development and changes in the industry. When you think back to 1960’s

even, and the conditions we worked under—I’ve certainly enjoyed it. My knees

haven’t. Too many bloody concrete floors and catwalks. But I guess that’s one

of the hazards of any job. There’s always a hazard involved. I’m sorry that,

you know, some of the guys that started in the industry when I did are not

around. That’s inevitable. It’s still great to be actively doing something and I

hope that I can continue to do it. But there’s plenty of young blokes in there

that can do it just as well, if not better, than we can I think these days. But I

think it’s been very rewarding. I guess I’ve been—got the tag of Riesling, and

that’s only by circumstance. We happened to be producing Rieslings here and

27

we applied techniques that were new, and we started making better quality

wines because of that.

And that was technology that was really brought in by—there was some pretty

deep thinkers. And, you know, give credit to Ray Kidd in those days. He was a

technologically advanced guy in white winemaking. There’s no doubt about

that.

And the contribution of Gramps to our white winemaking in the 50’s and 60’s. Well, thank you very much for talking to us, John. JV: My pleasure. John, you were talking about—just before we finish off—talking about some of the characters, and you were talking about one of the cellar hands here. Just describe him to me. JV: Well, he’s the epitome of your vision of a German Kellermeister in the

cellar in Germany. He was very dramatic, and bald-headed, and very flush-

faced. He looked as if he enjoyed his glass of wine during the day. And his

name was Harold Spaeth. And he was the sort of head cellarman when the

place employed five people, and it was mostly fortified wine. But we didn’t

have cellar door sales per se as we do today, and the only people who came

to buy wine were the growers, who came in for filling their jar up or their ten

gallon keg. And a lot of the wine was actually sold—peddled around the

countryside. You know, a lot of the German farmers—Eudunda, Kapunda, up

north. And the winemakers—the small makers here—used to actually peddle

their wine from farm to farm.

So these guys would come in for their kegs to be filled. And the cellar door

comprised a wooden box with four flagons in it. So you had the choice of a

muscat, a port, a sweet sherry or a dry sherry. And he’d have these poked in a

back corner of the cellar. And after they got their keg finished, he’d say, ‘Do

you care for a little taste? Come on, have a schluck.’ (Laughter) And it was

the same time—vintage time. The weighbridge was just out the front here,

outside the hedge, and there was a little—in the weighbridge, the concrete

28

floor, there was a little hole in the floor with a tin lid on it, and down in that hole

were the flagons to keep cool. And of course, it was very much the ceremony

of growers having a couple of glasses of wine when they delivered. Of course

it’s taboo these days. But, you know, the cellar door sales as we know them

today just didn’t exist.

Getting back to ports and sherries, when I first joined the company we used to

export a lot of wine to UK. It was all done in hogsheads. And there was a lot of

fortified wine, even made here, although it was a table wine cellar principally—

a lot of fortified exported, but also table wine. And we used to have to fill the

hogsheads down the back, roll them onto a truck, then the truck would go into

the railway station. We’d have to up-end—two of you—a 300 litre hogshead,

standing up on the truck. Then they’d be off-loaded at Port Adelaide onto the

ship to go to the UK.

We used to export table wine and amongst it, of course, Sauternes and

Rinegolde. Still Rhinegold, which was about—a moselle style—half a beaume.

We used to export that with about 100 parts free sulphur, which is virtually

undrinkable. Well, a lot of our wines were bottled with 50-70 parts free sulphur.

You would’ve thought that the wine would be okay but it’d sit in bond on the

wharf in London for long periods. By the time they got to use it of course it was

fermenting. So it was quite a problem in getting sweet table wine to the UK.

Going through the tropics. JV: Going through the tropics as well.

But everything was handled in hogsheads. And we were only talking yesterday

about getting wine to Sydney for bottling. Because when we closed our

bottling—although Lindemans used to buy from us before we—yes, we used to

ship wine to Lindemans from here. Transports in those days were rail tanks.

900 gallon. That’s about 4,000 litre. Mild steel tanks. Very heavy things.

They were made to be handled by crane onto rail trucks. And the tankers

would cart three of these. So 2,700 gallons was a load on a semi. And they

couldn’t go all the way through to Sydney. Because of the freight restrictions in

29

New South Wales in those days they had to be off-loaded onto the rail at Hay.

Then they’d go by rail to Sydney. Have to be off-loaded at the rail head in

Sydney onto a tray top and then taken to—well, Lindemans had a cellar at

Marrickville and earlier at Erskineville, and Burings had their cellar at Redfern

actually, where today the auction people, Andrew Killiards’ Auction place.

So it virtually took a week to get your wine to Sydney by tanker. And it wasn’t

really until—oh, I don’t know what year it would’ve been that we started getting

stainless tankers that carted bigger quantities. But certainly I think Lindemans

had something like a hundred of these rail tanks. Penfolds must’ve had

hundreds and hundreds of them. See them all lined up out the front, taking

their wines through to their cellars in Sydney.

Well, thank you very much, John.