McLAREN VALE WINERIES

McLaren Vale is famous in Australia and many parts of the world, for being a premium wine producing area, particularly for full bodied Reds. In the McLaren Vale Region there are probably more wineries than any other wine region in Australia.

That wasn’t always the case. When I was a kid growing up in ‘The Vale’, there were only a handful of family-run wineries. Apart from Tattachilla, which has the largest vineyard in the Southern Hemisphere, (640 acres or 1 square mile), there was D’Arenberg (Osborne family), Pirraminna (Johnston family), Seaview (Chaffey Bros.), Amery (Kay Bros.), Rycroft (Ingoldby family), Thomas Hardy Upper Tintara Winery produced the first commercial wines in the region, Penfolds, right in the township, later becoming the Southern Vales Cooperative.

Many old families have had vineyards supplying the various wineries, Olivers being one of them. In more recent times Don Oliver established the well-known Taringa Winery, north of McLaren Vale.

Then, in the 1970s/80s, small and medium wineries proliferated with another batch of small boutique style wineries in the last ten years.

When I was a kid, like a lot of my mates, I did a fair bit of grape picking, mostly in beautiful surroundings. McLaren Vale has the distinction of being located between the ‘Willunga Scarp’ of the Southern Mt. Lofty Ranges and Gulf St. Vincent. The Onkaparinga River is the northern boundary of the area. Fortunately, it is not just a ‘green desert’ of vineyards, like many areas. Much of it is undulating; the northern portion being the Onkaparinga Hills, then running out on to the plains toward Willunga and Aldinga. There is still quite a bit of pristine bushland in the northern area, in particular Hardys Scrub (600 acres), the Manning Reserve (120 acres) and Douglas Scrub (approx. 50 acres). At the base of the Onkaparinga Hills runs a long sand dune which also contains patches of native bushland. Creeks, such as Pedlars and Breakneck, run from the hills into the sea, their courses marked nicely by large red and blue gums.  They help further, to break up the green sea of vines. There are areas of cropping and grazing and other horticulture scattered throughout.

Years ago, Adele Pridmore wrote the definitive book on McLaren Vale calling it “The Rich Valley” And McLaren Vale is certainly that.  Unusually, government legislation has prevented the plague of suburbia encroaching on this special region, and one can only hope that this can continue.

The late Greg Trott, with help from others such as David Paxton, was largely responsible for this.

So here are a few experiences, thoughts, and observations from a ‘McLaren Vale boy”.

When I was in primary school, vintage was always marked by the arrival of Aboriginal kids enrolling at the school, their parents were working in the vineyards and were Ngarangeri from Point McLeay, around the Lake Alexandrina and the Coorong. We ‘regulars’ were pretty impressed with those kids, who rarely wore shoes. They could kick a footie with the best of us. When Vintage was over, they were missed.

The large Tintara Winery in the middle of the Vale was hard to ignore. Every working day, a loud steam whistle would sound at 8 am when work began, at 12 and 1 oclock to mark the Lunch Hour, and at 5pm to knock off.  The Ellis families had a mixed farm surrounding the town and some of our land bordered the Winery.

Plenty of kids probably earned their first money picking grapes, although I earned mine selling pomegranates for a penny each and rabbits which I trapped, for 2/6 ea. I actually set some tracks in the main street. If you set a trap there now, you wouldn’t get a rabbit, but very likely a ‘commuter’ through the week and a ‘yuppie’ on the weekends. Times have changed. Despite the development, McLaren Vale is still a country town – just. When you drive over Stump Hill from Adelaide, the “Vale” doesn’t appear much larger than it was back then. Let’s hope it stays that way. Willunga has retained its ‘country town feel’ a lot better, without many of the services available in McLaren Vale. “Old Noarlunga” is still the same little country town, surrounded by suburbia to the west, but protected by the Onkaparinga Gorge to the east. A unique situation. It used to be referred to as the ‘shoe’ because it nestled into a great bend in the river.

Aldinga was hardly ever ‘a town’ until recently. In a short space of time, a varied shopping centre, pub, supermarket, service station appeared. You could still call it rural. Open country on three sides, but coastal suburbia to the west.

Kangarilla, on the eastern side of the McLaren Vale wine region, has hardly changed, apart from extra housing. It could do with a pub.

McLaren Flat is an interesting case. When I was a kid it was sort of viewed as the ‘backwoods’ of McLaren Vale. It has produced some great characters, though Port wine has reduced many of their life expectancies. In the 50s and 60s, there were residents there who had never been to Adelaide, but I reckon there is nothing wrong with that. The township of McLaren Flat used to just consist of a school, oval, (the land for the McLaren Vale oval was donated to the town by my grandfather Ellis) a hall and Dyers General Store. Not much different now, except for the housing surrounding it. I think many would agree that the actual township lacks character, but the surrounding district certainly doesn’t. 

The McLaren Flat Store has morphed into an excellent coffee shop/bakery.

For years, the McLaren Flat Show was arguably one of the best in the state, but unfortunately no longer operates. There is now a club at the back of the hall, a postal depot, garage, and a tyre outlet with one of the most imaginative and humorous business names you could poke a stick at – “FLAT TYRES”.

In 1960 I went Jackerooing and was away in the outback in S.A. for 6 years. In 1966 I started my Outback Charter business, and in 1976 Camel Trekking was introduced to it. In the summer off-season, I would bring around “10 humps” to Douglas Scrub, where Patti and I were living. From there I operated 1-day Winery Treks, and 1-day Onkaparinga Gorge treks, travelling mostly through the paddocks, bush and vineyards.  The Winery trip was from a depot I had on Whiting Road, through Upper Tintara, to Amery Winery. Then through the vineyards to Seaview and Coriole, where we had lunch under a large mulberry tree. On to the then Mrrivale Winery, finishing at Chalk Hill Winery.

By this time, wineries had ‘bred up’ and Ken Maxwell had launched Maxwell Mead, the first in the country.

The Winery Treks caused a lot of interest. As we approached the various wineries, I would tell my clients to be quiet, and watch the reactions of the regular tourists. Most of their eyes would come out on stalks as they spied the camels!

On one very hot day, we drifted silently downhill to the Coriole Vineyard. A small party were having a bar-b-que on the flat. What turned out to be a Texan, dressed smartly in cords, white shirt, with a green and white spotted cravat… was about to pour some red into his cake-hole. He spotted the camels… his arm kept moving and the Coriole red went right down the front of his white shirt! There were many “God-damns”, then I had trouble getting rid of him: had to give him a free ride first.

Another time I had a young group on a very hot day. They became quite enebriated, passing around a bottle of Port. A very overweight member sat on the rear camel, becoming totally sozzled, leaving D’Arenbergs, down a steep hill, there was a ‘thud’. Looking around I saw him sprawled on the ground. Drunks rarely hurt themselves, but it was all I could do on my own to get him back on the camel, with no help from the others. Like trying to load a loose bag of ball-bearings. We continued on through scattered scrub and another 5 mins. later he fell off again. Once again I loaded him, vowing that would be the last time. A few minutes later and he was off again. With some difficulty I dragged him 20 mtrs to the shade of a large olive tree. l thought to myself “This is a paying client”. I tied the back of his belt to the tree and his wrists together, placing a large container of water within his reach. I knew that if he crawled away, he could easily perish on such a day and that definitely would be very detrimental to my business. I returned 2 hrs later with one of his ‘friends’. The situation was very different. He was half sobered up and wanted to kill me! I said to his mate, “I’m going to go home now and leave him to you”.

I had the Birdsville Pub for six years, from 1974 to 1980. My house red was from Pirramimma and called “A Birdsville Dry Red”. Their big red was as good as a blood transfusion, I always said. My white, from Greg Trott’s Winery, was my “Diamantina Riesling”.

You couldn’t mention the McLaren Vale district these days without including “The Cube” at D’Arenberg’s. A weird and wonderful four story rubic cube!

Those in the know would recognise the contribution that Graham Ward has made, not only to the wine industry, but almond and rose stock. But like so many modest people, he never blows his own trumpet.

Two of my good mates were late starters in the wine industry, but David Paxton’s “Paxton bio-dynamic wines” and Peter Bosworth’s organic “Battle of Bosworth” are leaders in their field.

Back to the camels… just to say… many “wine-tasters’’ will spend many hours tasting, and often walk out without a single purchase. I had a strict rule that my people would always buy, and two large pack bags were slung either side of my “wine-carrier came

l” for this purpose.