State Library of South Australia Jd Somerville Oral History Collection

STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION OH 692/53 Full transcript of an interview with JAMES HALLIDAY on 29 November 2001 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 OH 692/53 JAMES HALLIDAY 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. 2 OH 692/53 TAPE 1 - SIDE A NATIONAL WINE CENTRE ORAL HISTORY. Interview with James Halliday on 29th November, 2001. Interviewer: Rob Linn. James—I know you were born in 1938. Tell me about your parents, please. Who were they? JH: My father was a doctor. He was actually one of thirteen children so I had a very large number of first cousins. And he graduated from Sydney University, and then went to London in the mid 1920’s to do his FRCP, and while he was in London on that trip he was introduced to fine table wine. It was not, of course, a major part (and that’s putting it mildly) of Australian life at that time—fortified wine was, but table wine was not. And when he came back from that trip and bought the house in which he lived, and in which I was born and lived in for a considerable period of time thereafter, he established a formal cellar. It was underneath the house but reached internally. It was sandstone and had individual racks. It was a proper cellar, in other words. And that’s where it started [for me]. What was your father’s Christian name? JH: John—John Halliday. My mother, Muriel was from another interesting family with a lot of artistic streaks in them. After my father came back [from the UK], he became a customer of Lindemans. At the end of the 1920’s it was in receivership, where it lay until 1947. Lindemans was located in the basement of the Queen Victoria building and that was where he went to buy wine to stock the cellar. So when he came and bought as he did, three, four, five or six dozen bottles of table wine on one visit, he was greeted as a very valued customer because table wine was but a tiny fraction of the business. Of course the 3 people close to the company, the winemakers and the managers, had obvious pride in table wine. So that was really the start [for me]. James, in those years would beer and fortified wines have been the major drinks of Australia—alcoholic drinks? JH: Something like 97%. I mean, table wine was probably about three or four percent of the total market at that time. You were born in 1938, so do you have early memories of that cellar at your home? JH: Well, yes. My father went off to the War. He was a fairly distinguished physician, and after he went off to the War my elder sister, brother, mother and I moved up to Moss Vale, and the former house was in fact rented during the War. So when he came back and we returned to the house in 1945, it was from that time on, when I was seven, that my memories of it come. I was often taught to be the butler when they had dinner parties. So after a while it was I who would go around and pour the wine. There was some dispute between us as to whether I drank half wine/half water. I believe that that’s how I was given the wine. He said, ‘No, there was no water’. Either way, I gradually became interested in it, not as I might had I been born thirty years later, by which time wine was obviously far more socially important. Throughout my school days, when we had wine, I just drank it without any particular insights or curiosity about exactly what it was and how it had been made. And indeed my parents had the same attitude. After I had gone to St Paul’s College at Sydney University I suddenly became aware that Lindemans Riesling, Hock, White Burgundy and Chablis, were in fact all made from the one grape. There were just very minor differences in picking dates. The grape was commonly known in the Hunter Valley at that time as Riesling, which was derived from Shepherd’s Riesling, who had been the original nurseryman who provided cuttings and vines to people in the Hunter Valley. Later, Shepherd’s Riesling became Hunter Valley Riesling. 4 And of course that usage continued until very recently with McWilliams, Elizabeth and Murray Tyrrell with his first Chardonnay Semillon blend calling it Pinot Riesling, which must be one of the most confusing labels ever designed by man. Likewise, the Clarets and Burgundies that my father drank were made, again, from the one grape—Shiraz. And it was I who told him of these things. He was unaware of it, which was very much part and parcel of the attitude to wine at the time. He obviously had a reasonably good palate. The discussion on the wine would be brief but it would be pretty much along the lines of, ‘This is damn good’ or ‘We’ve opened this one too early’ or ‘It’s disappointing’, or whatever. A non specific discussion like that. So dinner party conversation was not then as it is often now, completely dominated by yacking on about the wine. Were you educated locally, James? JH: I had the rare distinction of being born in, lived in and went to boarding school in the same street. Our road was Victoria Road, Bellevue Hill. I went to Cranbrook and was a boarder there for the last four years, before I went to Sydney University and St Paul’s College. And you did arts/law? JH: I did arts/law, so that took six years. And it was there that I really became more interested in wine. Why did you choose arts/law? JH: I actually chose arts/architecture, and I very nearly didn’t get a Commonwealth scholarship, which were available in those days, because arts/architecture was an eight year course. And it was very unusual for anyone to do it. I just wanted to do arts because I loved history and hadn’t had much of an opportunity at school because I was bulldozed into doing all the subjects that I didn’t want to do, like Latin, chemistry, physics 5 and maths, on the thought that I might become a doctor. Once my mother sliced the ball of her thumb off with a kitchen knife while sharpening a stubby pencil, I knew—I was eleven or twelve at the time—that being a doctor was not for me. But nonetheless the options were kept open. Why I chose arts/law? Well, it was temporising. Really having got the scholarship for arts/architecture, I did two years of arts and then a first year of law as combined effectively with the third year of arts. And when I got the degree I was then confronted with the choice of another five years at the University via architecture, or another three via law, and I just couldn’t come at the idea of being there forever so I continued with my law. You would’ve been in your early twenties by this time? JH: Yes, I was pretty young when I went to university in 1955/56—’56. As I say, it was there that my interest in wine became rather greater because of the St Paul’s College wine club and cellar. It was via the club that I made my first trips to the Hunter Valley with Johnnie Walker and Harry Brown of Rhinecastle, who were the distributors for Tulloch wines in Sydney. I’m actually uncertain whether it was in 1956 or 1957 that I made my first trip to the Hunter. We were taken there under the aegis of Rhinecastle. So you hadn’t been there prior to this? JH: No. No. What was the character of the Hunter in those days? JH: Really a very, very sleepy place. Tulloch was the only place, and then very informally, that you could actually go and do a tasting and buy bottled wine from the winery. Lindemans and McWilliams were, of course, there but they hadn’t even contemplated cellar door sales. It just wasn’t part of the deal that you could do tastings there. Elliotts had a store in town where you could buy Elliott’s wines, labelled. But Tyrrell wasn’t doing it. That is, selling bottled wine with labels. 6 So this was all in bulk at that time, was it? JH: Yes.

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