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Exploration of the huge and growing variety of wines produced across Australia is now one of the joys of the Regional Australia experience. Given this, it is hard now to believe that wine was very much a minority Australian drink until very recent times.
Subtitled "Daily Life in a Vanished Australia", Geoffrey Blainey's Black Kettle and Full Moon (Penguin) provides a fascinating exploration of different aspects of daily life from European settlement until the early part of the twentieth century.
According to Blainey, spirits not beer were the favourite drink in early Australia simply because of transport costs.There were also quality problems with beer because brewers had not worked out how to produce a quality product in the new land.
Rum, Indian not Jamaican, was the early favourite. Later Dutch gin known as Geneva gained in popularity. But by the time of the gold rushes brandy had become the clear winner. Brandy was drunk in oceanic quantities, with ship after ship carrying kegs of French brandy.
Beer was a minor drink before the gold rushes but then gained in popularity. By 1870 Victoria had 116 breweries, thirty NSW towns had at least one brewery.This diversity did not last as local breweries closed in the face of competition from beer carried along the new railways or were bought by the major breweries. Today, little of this diversity remains.
Wine is different.
Wine growing began early around Sydney and then spread with European settelement.
In 1830 George and Margaret Wyndham purchased "Annandale" in the Hunter Valley, renaming the property "Dalwood" and building Dalwood House as a home.George had planted his first grapes in 1828 using 600 cuttings purchased from James Busby. Following the purchase he immediately made the first commercial planting of shiraz at "Dalwood". Then in 1831 he brought the 100,000 acre property "Bukkulla" near Inverell on the edge of the Northern Tablelands and there established another vineyard.
The first "Dalwood" vintage produced in 1831 was not a great success which due to the "extremely hot conditions promised to make good vinegar." Thereafter wine growing expanded rapidly. By 1860, Wyndham's total holdings were producing 11,000 gallons of wine.
The story of these early days can be found in The Generations of Men (Oxford University Press, 1955) by Judith Wright, one of Australia's best known writers and herself a member of New England's Wyndham/Wright pastoral dynasty. "Dalwood" itself is now the home of Wyndham Estate Wines.
This early and rapid expansion of wine production in NSW did not last. Wine production contracted over time to largely the Hunter together with a strip on the outskirs of Sydney.
In early Victoria the vineyards, often planted with cuttings from the Hunter, were few but productive in quantity (quality was another issue) before being badly damaged by phylloxera.Wine production then fell sharply.
In South Australia wine growing began in the hills around Adelaide with grower names like Seppelt, Hardy, Penfold, Reynell and Gramp, names that would become famous. Prussian, British and Bavarian vignerons then opened up the Barossa Valley.
In the midst of all this, while Australians drank more wine per head than other English speaking country, wine was not really a popular Australian drink. Further, many Australians who did drink wine preferred the imported product.
There were places where wine drinking was popular among a large minority. Roma in Western Queensland had a winery from the 1860s and probably drank more wine than all of Brisbane. Wine was a popular minority drink around Newcastle in the lower Hunter, in north eastern Victoria and among South Australia's German immigrants. However, in Australia as a whole, there were whole streets where not a wine bottle would be found. Beer remained the universal drink of choice, even at meal times.
All this began to change in the 1950s and 60s. This was partially due to increased affluence, in part to ithe influx of migrants from wine drinking countries such as Italy. But is also owed a lot to men such as Len Evans who did so much to both popularise wine drinking and drive up wine standards in this country.
Len Evans was born in England, migrating in 1953 to New Zealand. Arriving in Australia in 1955, he worked on the dingo fence in outback Queensland, did some welding, and washed glasses in a pub at Circular Quay. He wrote TV scripts, including for The Mavis Bramston Show
Evans's introduction to the wine trade was at the Chevron Hotel in Kings Cross. This hotel built by property developer Stanley Korman and opened in 1960 was a mark of modernity in Sydney.
Australia was then breaking out of the remaining austerity - intellectual as well as material - from the War and the Fifties. The Chevron was a symbol of this, and thousands drove past it upon its opening. The Korman Empire fell in the crash of 1961, leaving the Chevron's planned second wing a long standing hole in the ground.
Len began writing wine articles from 1962, becoming the first regular wine columnist in Australia. He was founding director of the Australian Wine Bureau in 1965 and then in 1969 he set up Len Evans Wines in Bulletin Place, Sydney, a wine shop and restaurant that made him a legend in his own lunchtime. Tony Stephens quotes him as saying in 1995 "Life will never be the same fun as the '70s in Sydney,"
In 1969, Len launched with others the Rothbury Estate winery and vineyard in the Hunter Valley. Later he set up Tower Lodge, along with Tower Estate winery as an upmarket boutique winery and hotel in the Hunter. He chaired the judges of the Sydney Wine Show (1979-2000) and National Wine Show (1983-1990) and judged in France. He continued to encourage younger figures in the Australian wine world, including Brian Croser and James Halliday.
The influence of Len Evans and others like him was quite profound because they affected both sides of the wine equation. Australian interest in and demand for wine grew rapidly, while also becoming more sophisticated. Wine production spread thoughout Australia from its original core areas such as the Barossa and Hunter Valleys to the point where Wine Diva now records Australia as having 51 wine regions.
Wine related tours, attractions and events have spread in parallel creating an abundance of associated experiences. Now in the next stage of development, we can see a growing interest in regional foods.