By Andrew Caillard MW
Australia’s wine story is fascinating and ambitious. Many 19th-century observers believed that Australia would become the France of the Southern Hemisphere. Although it would never achieve the same level of profitability as wool, coal, and iron ore, wine has been associated with influence and power throughout Australian history.
The Australian wine industry can be traced back to the first fleet, which transported grapevine cuttings to New South Wales in 1788. Vine cuttings were brought into the colony regularly by ship along with other varieties of flora, including trees, plants and seeds. The earliest types of grapevine cuttings were inevitably collected from the ports of call along the route to Australia, including Tenerife, Madeira, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. Early settlers also brought vine seeds and cuttings from England, where there was a small wine industry and an increasing number of nurserymen supplying vines for walled gardens in London.
The first vines
The spartan soils and limited fresh water around Port Jackson, New South Wales, presented an ongoing threat to the survival of the colony, and the first European settlers, acclimatised to rich Northern Hemisphere soils, were unaware of, and unwilling to consider, local Indigenous agricultural practices. In addition to the gardens in Sydney Cove and Government Farm at Rose Hill, a small convict settlement was also established at Norfolk Island, a fertile 35-square-kilometre volcanic outcrop around 1650 kilometres north-west of Sydney in the Pacific Ocean. In March 1790, the unpopular and antagonistic marine officer Major Robert Ross was sent to the island as lieutenant governor. As noted by researcher Don Seton Wilkinson, in December of that year, Ross reported:
‘From eight grape vines which I found in His Majesty’s garden, and two I found in Lt. Creswell’s, there are 600 cuttings planted, and all of them are in a flourishing condition; and last August, His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief sent 250 cuttings from Port Jackson, all of which are thriving equally well … and some of the old stocks have fruit this year, nor have I any doubt but the whole will bear fruit the next year … in a short time, they may export wine from this island.’
The grape varieties planted are not known, but the source of the cuttings is fascinating. Although not entirely conclusive, the eight grapevines from ‘His Majesty’s garden’ (most likely the gardens in Sydney) suggest some of the vine stock may have come from Kew, United Kingdom. It is possible that those cuttings on Norfolk Island included pinot meunier and pinot noir.
To read the rest of the story, check out the latest edition of Traces.
Pictured: Men enjoying wine from the Chateau Yering Wine Company
