From Boudry to the Barrabool Hills, the Swiss Vignerons of Geelong
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rom Bou dry to thé Barrabool Hills The Swiss Vignerons of Geelong In ~ne~nory Charles Louis Tétaz and the early Swiss vinedressers and vignerons of Geelong rom 8oudry to thé Barrabool Hills The Swiss Vignerons of Geelong John Tétaz Australian Scholarly Publishing Melbourne John Tétaz 1995 Copyright on translation of the letters is held by Edward and Andrée Markee 1995 First published 1995 by Australian Scholarly Publishing PO Box 299 Kew, Victoria 3101 National Library of Australia cataloguing-in-publication data: Tetaz, John Robert, 1928—. From Boudry to the Barrabool Hills: the Swiss vignerons of Geelong. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 1 875606 27 0. 1. Vintners —Victoria —Biography. 2. Vintners- Switzerland —Neuchâtel —Biography. 3. Vineyards- Victoria —Geelong —History. 4. Vineyards —Victoria- History. 5. Viticulturists —Victoria —Biography. I. Title. 663.200922945 Cover: Pi »ot Noir grnpes, Pri »ce Albert Vi »egarci (conrtesy of Br»ce n »ct Susn » Hyett). ontents Ackno w ledgemen ts v1 Foreword Vii Introduction 1 Why Leave Canton Neuchâtel? 3 Whence They Came 5 Journey to a New Life 9 Early Days at Victoria Vineyard 35 The Second Vineyard —Prince Albert 54 Charles Marries Mary Gundry 89 François Louis Arrives 91 The Good Years 107 The Death of Pettavel 132 Phylloxera Vastatrix 145 The Declining Years 153 Epilogue: Vignerons and Vineyards 160 Appendices 162 Notes 190 Bibliogra phy 200 Index 202 ckno wled ge ment s I wish to record my appréciation for the help I received from the following: My father Charles John Tétaz (1893—1973) and his cousin Frank Lewis Tétaz (1921—89) for early family réminiscences; Numa Tétaz (1903—86) of Genève for the family history from 1590 and for locating the holders of the letters; Marguerite Esther Werz (1910—89), née Tétaz and Yvètte Andrée Uldry (1912— ), née Tétaz, grand-daughters of Jules Adolphe Tétaz (1839—1912); Edward and the late Andrée Markee, née Perrochet, who translated the letters into English; Michael and Tosca Tétaz, Neuchâtel, for their contribution of Neuchâtel family records; George Tétaz, Neuchâtel, for excellent cartography of the Neuchâtel région; Susanne Wegmansx for information of Swiss immigration to Australia; Ian Wynd of Geelong for guidance in the préparation of this book; my wife Thelma for assistance and the typing of the manuscript; and Australian Scholarly Publishing for publishing Fronr. Boiccfry to thé Barrabool Hills. Many of the photographs in this book were supplied by Stanley Neale, a son of James and Elizabeth Neale, née Tétaz. JOHN TÉTAZ Melbourne 1995 ore word Swiss from the canton of Neuchâtel and from the town of Boudry in particular played a significant role'in the establishment of the wine industry in the Geelong région. Prominent among them were members of the Pettavel and Tétaz families. David Pettavel, from Boudry, and Frédéric Breguet, from Coffrane, established the first vineyard in the Barrabool Hills at Pollocksford on the Barwon River in 1842. There, on twenty-five acres leased from William Clark Haines and John Highett, they planted the first vines in their Neuchâtel Vineyard. They sold their first grapes in Geelong in 1846. Also in 1842, brothers Jean and Alexandre Belperroud, Swiss from Cornaux, began their Berramongo Vineyard a few miles closer to Geelong, near Dewings Ford on the Barwon. By 1845 thèse two vineyards together covered only five acres but they gradually increased their plantings. In 1855 Berramongo was big enough to produce 10—12 tons of grapes and 5,000 gallons of wine; in 1861 Neuchâtel had fifteen acres of vines and seven acres of orchard and expected to produce 7,000 gallons of wine. By this time Breguet and Pettavel had dissolved their partnership, with Pettavel buying 585 acres at Waurn Ponds, where he established his famous Victoria Vineyard, which grew to forty-five acres in size. He also developed the Prince Albert Vineyard close by, putting his nephew, Charles Tétaz, the writer of most of the letters in this book, in charge. Breguet continued at Neuchâtel, sometimes in partnership with others, and he also established the Suisse Vineyard in Merrawarp Road. Finding skilled labour was a continuing problem for the pioncer vignerons, which the gold rushes of the 1850s only exacerbated. They turned to their native land for experienced workers and helped many to emigrate. Pettavel sought migrants in his own family circle, bringing out members of the Barbier, Marendaz and Tétaz families. As soon as they found their feet, some of thèse migrants established their own vineyards. Names like Dunoyer, Seidel, Nyffenecker, Tribolet, viii Foreword Aeschlimann and Imer soon featured among the district's vignerons and the number of vineyards grew considerably. By 1867 nearly 500 acres of vines had been planted in the Barrabool Shire alone, more than half in the Barrabool Hills, and 45,000 gallons of wine were produced. There were also vineyards in the Shires of Bannockburn, Corio and South Barwon. By the late 1870s, however, the acreage under vines had declined. The earliest vignerons were dead or retired; some of their successors lacked their pioneering zeal, and wine had failed to capture the palates of Victorian drinkers. Then the vines were hit by an infestation of phylloxera vastatrix, the grape louse, resulting eventually in ail vines being eradicated in the early 1880s. It was 1888 before any replanting began, and ten years later only sixty-six acres had been replanted. The grand days of vine growing were over. The bare bones of this outline take on flesh when one reads the letters which follow. One expériences the satisfaction of producing a good vintage and the frustration of a crop lost to the vagaries of nature. One shares the initial feelings of aliénation, the graduai acceptance of life in a new, strange land, the joys and sorrows of family life, and the final devastating loss of everything for which the writer has worked. IAN WYND Geelong 1995 n tro duc t ion The most important Swiss migration to Australia followed the arrivai of Charles Joseph and Sophie La Trobe and their daughter Agnès in Victoria in 1839..1 Over the next thirty years, a mass exodus of winemakers and vinedressers from Neuchâtel and its surrounding villages took place. Neuchâtel was familiar to La Trobe; it was where he met and became engaged to Sophie, one of the daughters of Frédéric Auguste de Montmollin, a Swiss councillor of state. The de Montmollin family belonged to the Neuchâtel aristocratie élite. Most of the Swiss émigrants were from the French-speaking cantons of Neuchâtel and Vaud, and amongst them were Pettavel from Bôle; Barbier, Amiet and Grellet from Boudry; Marendaz from Mathod and Tétaz from Chamblon. Many were related by marriage. Charles Louis Tétaz (1837—97) arrived in Melbourne in 1856 on the Eve&&i »g Star with his brother and cousin, the Marendaz children and David Pettavel, who was returning after recruiting in Switzerland. In the period 1855—97 Charles Louis wrote over eighty letters to his parents, brother and sister in Boudry. They begin in Boudry and end in 1897 with his death in Colac, Victoria. The letters give détails of their journey to Australia in 1855—56, via London, to join David Pettavel at Victoria Vineyard in Geelong; the establishment of Prince Albert Vineyard; their successful vineyards of the 1860s; his marriage to Mary Gundry and the birth of their seven children; the death of David Pettavel in 1871; and the démise of the Geelong vineyards brought about by the onslaught of I&hi/llo&r« & « v« st« tri r after 1879. In August 1893, Charles Louis wrote: When the vineyards in this district were destroyed, it was a terrible blow to us. We were the first and now we're at the end of the queue. I ~i t r o n' ii c t i o n The finding of the letters is a story in itself. Jules Adolphe had passed them onto his son Charles Emile Tétaz (1881—1970) and grand-daughters Marguerite Werz, née Tétaz, and Yvette Uldry, née Tétaz. In 1977—78, the letters were translated into English by Edward Markee, formerly of the British Foreign Office, and his wife Andrée, née Perrochet. On completion of the translation, Edward wrote: Now that I have finished, I can say it's a pity there weren't more of the letters, for so many of the subjects they mention briefly would be of great sociological interest —how labour was recruited abroad, the Swiss family unit in which young sons appear to have worked as unpaid labourers, bushrangers, the militia and so on. I have found it highly interesting but am glad to have finished, having read each letter an extraordinary number of times. I hope you like the result. And Andrée had her own comments to make: We found thèse letters interesting and sometimes moving. We often wished Charles had written in greater détail, though if he had, we'd still be translating them. We have tried to stick very closely to thé original flavour but the specifically Swiss French and the phonetic spelling can't be rendered into translation. The occasional pomposities of nineteenth-century letter- writing style the 'I have to inform you', the Biblical quoting and misquoting, and bits of quaint English are his, and so are the double and triple exclamation marks. Andrée Markee died in October 1993, and her dedicated contribution is very. much appreciated. She was a great-grand-daughter of Abram Henri Tétaz (1798—1882), whose three sons journeyed to Victoria to work in the wine industry. Whilst thèse letters form the centrepiece of this book', information from Pierre Borel with the names and origins of Neuchatelois who applied for passports to corne to Australia in the 1840s and 1850s have been added together with shipping détails and genealogical information on the families of Aeschlimann, 7 I-'erdrisat, 8 Perrotet, Amiet, Breguet, 10 Grellet, Marendaz, Pettavel, Tribolet, Tétaz and others.