Karl Seppelt

STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 692/147

Full transcript of an interview with

KARL SEPPELT

on 28 June 2000

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 692/147 KARL SEPPELT

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.

OH 692/147 TAPE 1 - SIDE A

NATIONAL WINE CENTRE, WOLF BLASS FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT. Interview with Mr Karl Seppelt at Springton, South Australia, on 28th June, 2000. Interviewer: Rob Linn.

Well, Karl, let’s begin by talking about the Seppelt family.

KS: Right. Well, if you go back a few generations—in fact, about five to start with. I understand that my great great grandfather found himself marching off to Moscow with Napoleon. About that time he was married and he had some sons, one of which he hadn’t seen until he came home. And he was away for something like, I believe, about eleven years. Lord knows what he did in the meantime. Because I think Napoleon came home in the first year but they must’ve had to find home some other way. What he did, I don’t know. But he must’ve had a good time. So it was about eleven years before he got back home and saw one of his sons for the first time. And his son was called Joseph Ernest Seppelt, who in those days, of course, got a reasonably good education because they were merchants and they travelled all over the world. They were good on music and arts and things like that. And he had to learn his business the hard way, I suppose, or the way they did in those days, which was to travel around from merchant to merchant, and they’d spend a few weeks or months there and learn the various types of techniques that were used in the sorts of businesses they were in. And he travelled around Germany, Austria, Italy, and was passed from one establishment to another. Somewhere in the family archives we’ve still got what would’ve been a passport in those days I suppose. It was only a piece of paper with stamps on it, saying that he was a recognised gentleman and he

should be looked after wherever he went, between the various provinces around Europe. Well, the business and the associations they had, of course, was tobacco and snuff. They distilled spirits and they made liqueurs. And Silesia in those days was just going through a thirty year war, and there were riots and religious persecutions all over the place, and I think the family decided that it was time to get out. So around about 1849 old Joseph Seppelt and his wife, two sons and a daughter, plus a number of his workers, and their families, set sail from Hamburg. I think their original intention was to go to Chile but for some reason or other they found that there was civil war going on in those places and decided, maybe no, that wasn’t a good idea. So eventually turned around and decided they’d come to Australia. Well, the great grandfather at that stage was about thirty-six years old, and the second son that he had was about two years old when they left. They did arrive. I don’t know where they landed first but they certainly got to Adelaide in January of 1850. And from what I heard from various people in the old days he missed out being an old colonial by about a month. They were called old colonials up until about 1850.

1850, yes.

KS: So he dipped out on that one. Initially a lot of the Germans went out to Klemzig, one of the little suburbs around Adelaide now. And they sort of settled there for a while until they found their bearings and decided what the heck they wanted to do. And before leaving—I think they must’ve been encouraged by the early English settlers to take up land. And I think my grandfather and great grandfather had a town acre, which I understand was somewhere between North Terrace and Rundle(?) Street as part of the deal. But once that they decided they wanted to go out in the country and set up in their farming practices and start their businesses, he sold his town acre for a horse and cart, I think. Would be nice to have it today, of course. It’d be worth more than a horse and cart I think.

Anyway, off they went, and they bought some country up in the Barossa Valley, around 1852. They got 150-odd acres, which they purchased for about £1 an acre. Some of it might’ve been cleared by then I think, but in the early stages the family settled in Tanunda for a couple of years, and they went out with their workers and cleared the land and started it going. And it was only a couple of years later, I think, before they finally built a house out there, which is still there today. And the property then became known as—or the nucleus of it was called Seppeltsfield. A lot of the workers that they brought with them all went out together, and even today a lot of the families, their names are still around in that area. So they obviously all stayed and worked with him for quite a long time. Well, a few of the good years followed after they went up in the Barossa. Gold rush started off in Victoria, and wheat prices went up to about £1 a bushel, which must’ve been an enormous price in those days, which really set them on their feet.

Oh, yeah.

KS: From then on it wasn’t too much trouble to start developing their business. Well, by about 1867 they were farming, they had grazing things going for them, they had a few vineyards they’d put in. The tobacco, which they started with, hadn’t work. It was too dry up there and it obviously went mouldy or something like that. And they had really good mixed farming. The workers, of course, were all kept and fed on the place. They all lived in little cottages around Seppeltsfield. They’d been given a little bit of land like the Germans used to have. And the early winemaking was started off in the old grandmother’s cellar, of all places, in the early stages. But it wasn’t very long before they were able to expand. One of the earliest markets they had, of course, were up in the Burra with the miners, and all the bullock tracks, and people that used to go backwards and forwards carting the copper. So it must’ve been reasonably lucrative in those days for them, and they were able to develop their business fairly well.

One of the interesting little heresays that you get from time to time from the oldies was that in those days the Aborigines were still tramping backwards and forwards. And they used to pull up along the creeks and things. They started at night to have corroborees and things. It used to get a bit dicey. And they would demand wine, you know, from the old grandfather, and he used to be pretty nervous about this. He didn’t want to get speared. So apparently one night he decided that, well, he’d fix them properly. So instead of giving them the wine that they wanted, he went down the vinegar factory and gave them some vinegar instead. And if the story is true, they didn’t come back for any more. (Laughs) And away they went. And that was another one of the early things that they used to do. They started making vinegar amongst -

Oh, yes, I was going to ask you that.

KS: - the products they had. Because in those days, everybody pickled their own vegetables and things, and their meats. And so they got into that, which turned out in later years to be a very lucrative business. Well, it wasn’t very long after that that finance must’ve been a bit of a problem in the country areas, and the great grandfather decided, with a lot of the other entrepreneurs around the place, that they ought to start a bank. So they got a prospectus together to develop what they called an agricultural bank. Well, it never came off. I think the banks in the cities decided they’d better get up there anyway, which they did. And in those days the banking was all done up in Kapunda for some reason or other. I suppose it was one of the main centres of the trade up to the north. And up until we stopped banking in the country we had number one bank account in the Kapunda National Bank. And that, of course, is all gone now. We went to town to bank in the end. Well, the old chappie that came out here, old Joseph Seppelt, died in 1861. He’d been out visiting some of his friends around the place and apparently caught pneumonia very quickly and he was dead in a couple of days.

And quite a few years back, I was interested to get hold of some of the signatures of the early Seppelts, and the only place I could find one of those was down in the city in the Births, Death and Marriages places, and I found it there. And amongst the certificate when he died, was the doctor’s—I suppose identity, or whatever you call it. His conclusion of what killed him. Well, in those days they didn’t know much about it, and he’d written on the bottom, he died of the DT’s, (Laughter) which I thought was a bit rugged. But in those days, of course, I suppose if you got pneumonia and things like that you start to shake around a bit. And there it was. Anyway, I got his signature, and I got the grandfather’s signature, and quite a lot of the others. Just to see what’s going on. And how they performed with their names. Well, when he died in 1868 his son was then only twenty-one years of age, and he was obliged I suppose to look after the business. Take it over, which he did. And that’s when the business started to really grow.

So which son was this, Karl?

KS: That was what was known as Benno Seppelt, or the company became known as B Seppelt & Sons in later years. An interesting point at that stage was when the great grandfather came out, JE Seppelt, he got naturalised. Very shortly after he got here. I suppose when he was still down at Klemzig. But they didn’t seem to bother about the family and the kids in those days for some reason or other. They never naturalised them. And that had some pretty serious repercussions going back in later years. But we’ll get to that. And so by 1875, after old Benno Seppelt had got himself established, the business had got to about 250 tons of grapes at vintage time, which in those days was quite a bit of wine. And looking back at some of the early records, they knew what they wanted to do in the early days, and he had aspirations for making proper clarets and burgundies and Rieslings. Now there were quite a premium on the grapes in

those days—on those varieties. But as things moved along, of course, because of the problems with temperature and transport, the industry sort of drifted into making fortified wines, which was probably easier to keep. But the original cellars were expanded in 1875, and they were all made out of stone in those days of course from one of the quarries around Greenock there. In fact, even today the stones are still there in the buildings. Some of them are three feet long. Remarkable! But because of the temperature there they decided that the only way to make wine was to build a cellar on the side of a hill and cut it into the cliff, and on the lowest level, which was almost on the level of the creek, they dug holes in the ground and put their underground tanks in. And then on the land level they built tanks out of the slates that they got from up around Mintaro, which are still there today. On the next level up they built big vats, I suppose to put in either table wine or fortified wine. And then on top of that again, up against the roof, they had their hogsheads and things for maturing their fortified wines quickly. That building hasn’t changed a great deal in all those years since they put it there.

So it’s basically a gravity feed system?

KS: Yes, it was. And most of the building is still intact. The way it was in the early days. Roundabout 1878, the grandfather must’ve decided that he’d put some wine away. So every time he had a kid(?) I think he put a barrel of wine away. Now that practice was continued on—it might be still going today as far as I know. But that was the origin of Para ports. Para was the little river that ran down past the place. And the first one that we really broached was in 1978. So we put out a wine that was 100 years old, which was still very drinkable. It was almost like treacle but it was quite remarkable that not only the wine had lasted that long but the hogshead that it was in was still in perfect condition. And so the thing developed and every year the winemakers put another one down. So as far as I know, it’s still going on.

In those days, as you say, there was no electricity. Very little power of any sort around in those early years. But as things developed—and they put the new winery up on the side of the hill there. That was all gravity fed. And the horses and carts went right up the top of the hill with the grapes. When they were crushed they eventually worked their way down through the fermentation cellar, right down to the bottom of the hill to the maturation cellars, and so it went on. And as a kid I can still remember—and I’m going back now to the mid 30’s, when I think we went over there for a visit once—there were still people that used to stand there all day with little hand pumps, with a big handle, going backwards and forwards. That was their job for the day. (Laughs) Pumping wine. Some of them, I suppose, pumped it like that for years until electricity came along in the 30’s.

It was all pneumatic pumps?

KS: All hand pumps, yeah. Before electricity came they’d got a little bit more modern. They had boilers and steam, and they probably had a few steam pumps here and there to pump things around. There was no water in there in those days, apart from the wells that they had. They had to pump their water up the hill, too. One of the abilities of the old grandfather, that was old Benno Seppelt, he used to read the Scientific American. The magazines that used to come out from the other side of the world. And in those days Gawler had the railway foundry, and there were lots of engineering works there. Foundries of all sorts for casting. And with the aid of the people down there, the Martins and those sorts of foundry people, they designed and built most of the machinery that was used at Seppeltsfield right up until the Second World War, pretty well. And it was quite unique. A lot of it was all thought out for the job. Still works today if you wanted to make it go. Bit like old Pottsy’s(?) press down there. Everything still works but they don’t use it any more. But they had big hydraulic presses there, on the top of the hill there, with great big weights. So they used to pump this thing up with water, and that was the

pressure that worked on the bottom of the hill for pressing the grapes. And all the skins and things were carted in little trolleys, down the winery, which is of course on the side of a hill. And they had boards about four foot wide, and these little trolleys with wheels under them. And put the skins in the trolleys and push them all the way down the bottom of the hill and tip them into the press. Quite a dangerous job. You’d never get away with it today. And so it went on. And by about 1902 the company got big enough to be registered and it became a company called B Seppelt & Sons. And the eldest of the uncles, whose name was Oscar, became the Managing Director. He, perhaps, was one of the most intelligent and more practical people in the wine industry at that stage, which was still very small by today’s standards. He was certainly an activist. And under his control for many years, the company grew, and all the sons in the business were given jobs here, there and everywhere. Branches were all opened up. So that by the First World War we had branches in all the States of Australia, and even one in Broken Hill, believe it or not. I don’t know why they had it out there but they certainly did.

Might’ve been to do with the amount of alcohol consumed in the town, Karl.

KS: It’s very likely. So that was about 1914. What I’m probably talking about is the same thing that was happening in all wineries around the Barossa Valley anyway. They were slowly developing. They had their ups and downs. You know, there were recessions before the turn of the century and things went bad for quite a long time. Nothing happened for many years. Then the First World War came along and a lot of the Germans in the Barossa Valley were in pretty serious trouble at that stage. And as I was saying, old Benno Seppelt had never been naturalised, coming out here when he was two years old. And for a while it looked pretty serious. And there were some thoughts that maybe the business would be confiscated. However, it wasn’t, due to the good intentions of some of the solicitors and people in the city, I suppose, who managed to avoid the issue. But at that stage my father, in particular—was one of the younger ones in the business—

happened to be in London, and he was studying architecture. And his father told him that he could spend a year in London learning the trade and then go off to Berlin to finish his studies and then come home again. Well, he never got to Berlin, of course, but during the time he was in London the War started. He joined the British Territorial Army, which probably had some bearing on the fact that the business survived out here.

And your father’s name, Karl?

KS: That was Gerald. JG Seppelt was his initials.

He was Oscar’s nephew?

KS: No, they were all brothers. I didn’t go down to the stage of showing you what the family was but there it is.

Thank you.

KS: He was way down the bottom of the list there. So he finished the War. He was in France from 1914 until 1918. And many years later, I was in London and I thought that just for interest sake I’d go around to the War Records Office and see if I could get his War record. The old soldiers didn’t talk too much about it. And eventually I did. I got it but they wouldn’t give me all the documents until I could prove who I was, and I had to go and find out—because my mother and father had died at that stage anyway, and I had to find their death certificates and all the rest of the stuff and send it off to England and prove that I was the next of kin. And finally got it. And he was put into what was called then the Medical Corp, being an architect I suppose, and they used him for running around with stretchers and things, picking up people I suppose off the battlefield for (couldn’t decipher word). (Laughs) And then he got to looking after billets and things like that. He was also supposed to be a little bit behind the lines but by the sound of it he wasn’t. He told me they used to have to run pretty fast from time to time -

Oh, yeah.

KS: - when they got right up around the front. Well, in 1918 they gave him a commission. And so off he went to London to get his uniform and his pistol, and all the rest of it. (Laughs) At that stage the War was nearly over. And when I got his record from the War Office it had shown that he had been given a commission. And his final posting, of all things, was to go to Russia. Of course, there was civil war on in those days. And I think he had different ideas and he just packed his bag and came home. So that was the end of that. He didn’t resign that commission, I believe, until way into the 30’s. He must’ve kept it but he was never game to go back to England. (Laughter) And so things went on. At that stage, after the War there, we had uncles running places in Brisbane, in Melbourne, Adelaide, and managers in the other capital cities. And those sorts of activities continued on well and truly until the Second World War, which was a bit of a shame because they were—the old uncles at that stage were getting a bit old. They’d have gone through the 30’s and the depressions and things, which meant nothing happened anyway. Things were really tough. Well, one or two things happened around—just before the Second World War, which had a fairly big bearing on the industry. And you’ll pick this up from other people as you -

Don’t tell me, Karl. You were born. (Laughs)

KS: No, I was born in 1930.

That’s the beginning of the depression though.

KS: Yes. Oh, it was hard. And at that stage my father had just gone off to Western Australia to practice architecture but nothing much happened. (Laughs)

Really?

KS: Yeah.

So he actually did practice?

KS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, around Adelaide here. When he came from the War they were working around Adelaide with some of the architectural firms. And he was one of the blokes that put Colonel Light Gardens together. The thousand home schemes out there?

Yeah.

KS: When he probably decided that there was more future in Western Australia, so he got married and went over there. And the depression hit pretty hard and there was not much that could do. I mean, a couple of years he did some good work but after that it sort of fizzled out. And he eventually got a job back in the business. Things were getting pretty rugged and I suppose didn’t have much money. And the old chappie that was running the branch in Western Australia was getting very old, and finally they had to retire him. And my father worked his way from being a bottle washer in the cellars at Fremantle up to being the manager. And there he stayed until about 1941. And the old uncle that was running the branch in Sydney retired, and the family sent him over there. So we spent our formative years, I suppose, in Sydney. So when it comes to knowing much about the Barossa Valley, well, I really wasn’t there very often. Didn’t go over there until I went to Roseworthy College way back in 1948. But getting back to the pre-War years. You’ll find this out as you travel through your exercise. The old Uncle Oscar was a fairly active man in all industry politics and at one stage he and a number of other industry members were all off to Canberra to talk to the politicians. What he seemed to always be doing. And for some reason or other he had to change, and he didn’t go. But that was the disaster that happened with the aeroplane.

1938.

KS: Yeah. Where Gramps and Hardys and the Smiths got killed. These were all the up and coming young people. And very shortly after that the uncle

retired from the business. So it was four of what you might’ve called the senior people in the industry. The really dynamic ones were wiped out just before the Second World War. And that really was a tragedy because from there on in we had droughts, and the War years of course, and not a great deal happened. The young people went off to the War and things just stagnated.

There still would’ve been a bit of an export business going, Karl?

KS: Up until the beginning of the War, yes, we did. But of course, during the War years, it was all stopped. There was no point in trying to cart wine to England when they needed food. So it pretty well all stopped. Anyway, wine was immediately rationed. Everything was controlled. Materials were hard to get. The soldiers had all gone off to the War. And it was more or less a care and maintenance job I suppose, trying to survive all through the 40’s and the ‘45 years. A lot of the industry lost people, of course. We lost a cousin during the War. He was sunk on the Perth. And he was one of the young ones that was coming on. He’d been to Roseworthy College, and he was one of the people that was probably being relied upon. Well, at that stage in the 30’s, of course, the families were starting to have to employ more people because the businesses were expanding. And old Uncle Oscar got busy, and he got three gold medallists out of Roseworthy College, all roundabout the early 30’s. One was called Melvin Bell, another Colin Preece, who was fairly well known in the industry, and another was called Alan Woodroffe. They all probably started at Seppeltsfield but they were fairly quickly moved around. And Mr Bell stayed at Seppeltsfield all his life. Colin Preece went down to Great Western. And old Woody, as he was known, went up to Rutherglen. And like most of the other companies—and the names that you’ll probably get during your travels—the people that really ran the industry weren’t the families in the industry. As far as I could see they were the staff they’d employed.

TAPE 1 - SIDE B

KS: Well, the Roseworthy College influence, of course, had been working its way through the industry even before the turn of the century. And the early winemakers, of course, had to go somewhere to learn. They sent uncle Oscar to Germany, to Geisenheim, to do—way back before the turn of the century. And in later years we had a visitor from Geisenheim that used to come out, a chappie by the name of Dr Helmut Becker, who was one of the senior lecturers still at Geisenheim. He used to come out to some of the industry conferences here after the Second World War. And during a conversation with him one day, I said, ‘I know one of my uncles was at Geisenheim. Would there be any chance of finding out any records?’ ‘Oh’, he said, ‘we’ve got records going back hundreds of years. I’ll go and look it up for you’. So he did, and he wrote me a little letter saying, ‘Yes, your uncle was here at Geisenheim, and he spent nearly two years here, but the records show that the great Mr Seppelt was too important’. He had no discipline, of course, in those days. You know, families living out in the country there didn’t have the old German discipline. And he was either told to move on, or something, but he finished off his studies in Switzerland at (couldn’t decipher name) I think. But from thereon in, most of the families would’ve been sent either to Montpellier in France or down to Spain to learn their business. And that went on during the two world wars. And I know a couple of my cousins went off down to Montpellier. Another one went down to Spain and got tangled up in the civil war.

(Telephone interruption)

KS: Where were we? Down about the Spanish civil war. And that was pretty rough. And the old uncle Oscar was still running the organisation in those days, and I think these people were getting something like £5 a week to live on when they

were overseas. And they used to get Bank drafts sent to them. And apparently they were sent off in the old flying boats, before the War. And one flying boat crashed and down went their Bank draft for the month. So they had no money. And what could you do? I mean, they were in a foreign country. No way to get any cash. And so—this is Bill Seppelt, and he told me one day, ‘Well, we had to live for a whole month hand-to-mouth, without any money. The only way we could eat was to go into little cafes where on the tables they always used to have some bread and olive oil. We used to rush in the cafe, stick the bread in the olive oil, swallow it down and rush out again’. (Laughs) You imagine what your stomach’d be like on a stomach full of olive oil. (Laughs) Anyway, they survived but I think it must’ve been a very scary existence for them, you know, running around not knowing which side—because soldiers in that civil war really didn’t have uniforms, a lot of them. So you didn’t know what side you were on from time to time. And so they came back home again eventually, but by that stage the majority of the industry was now setting Roseworthy College up. And in the early stage there were people like Ron Haselgrove, I think it was, old Professor Perkins who’d been the original at Roseworthy College, uncle Oscar, and a number of the other industry people, got busy and decided that, with old Dr Callaghan who was Principal at that stage, that they ought to do something about putting a wine course together, which they did. And as far as I can gather, the people that were interested in that at that stage were old Ron Martin, Leslie Salter, old uncle Oscar Seppelt, Ron Haselgrove, Karl Weidenhofer , and Reg Mowatt, who had some influence at Great Western in the years before. So got the thing started and that would’ve been roundabout 1936. And some years back they put a book together, which you’ve probably seen?

Yes.

KS: From(?) Roseworthy College. And the first lot of students were old Charles Kelly, an old name in the industry -

My word!

KS: - Max Hackett who, in later years, was manager of the Tarac up here in Nuri, Noel Burge, a winemaker from around the Barossa somewhere, and (sounds like, Malc M) Allen, who I think ended up in the Department of Ag somewhere. That was the first intake. And the lecturers in those days. Old Alan Hickinbotham, is still a good name in the industry, who you’ll probably get to interview one of these days. Or his father, that was. And old Jock Williams, who’s well gone by now I suppose. Another fellow by the name of Hooper. And old John Fornachon. That’s where he must’ve got his start in life. And so a bit of history there. In 1937, the next lot that went through was a bloke by the name of Graham, Ben Chaffey, Rex Kuchel.

Yeah, Rex I know.

KS: You’ll know him but you won’t interview him because he’s been dead for quite a while. One of the cousins, Peter Seppelt. Reg Shipster, you were talking about earlier. They all gained their diplomas. And from thereon in, of course, the War came along. Old Tom Angove went there in 1938. Ryan, Barry, Smith, (sounds like, Harnish), Heath, (sounds like, Tummel) and Henry Martin. At that stage a lot of them were starting to go off and go to the War and never finished. Including old Mervyn Gramp and Mark Hill Smith. They were all there at Roseworthy. And a lot of them just joined the Forces. Some of them went back but not many. They just went into their own businesses, I think, after they got back from the War. Well, out of the intake there, old Rex Kuchel eventually joined the staff at Roseworthy College, and he was a lecturer there for many years. Very nice old chap, he was, too.

Then the Botanic Gardens. Worked with Noel, didn’t he?

KS: Yes. And then finally, I think, he went to the forensic—the Police.

Yes, he did.

KS: And ended his career there. But it went on and on. And Roseworthy College probably produced a great many of the leaders in the industry at that stage. You know, there was old Shipton, Brian Barry, and the Corbins, and Dolans, and Stanfords. Ray Kidd, going to see him?

Yes.

KS: That’ll be fun. Old Doug Corbett(?), Basedows. And so it went on and on and on. So I’d say that they were the people that were really in the hands-on positions in the industry—many of them. And quite a number of them did end up being the Managing Directors of their companies. In the days when things were still gentlemanly. Well, during the War of course, as it went along, there was rationing. It was very hard to get supplies of anything, and companies had to think up all sorts of ways and means of surviving, if they could. And I know at Seppelts there they were busy still with vinegar. Of course, that was something that probably wasn’t rationed.

No.

KS: And that was made out of wine and distilled alcohol so I suppose they were able to keep that going. And they made cordials, soft drinks. They even made power alcohol for a while there, and chewed all the insides out of the tanks and the stills. (Laughs)

I reckon.

KS: Burnt the place to pieces. And the vinegar factory kept going. And when the Americans joined the War they were looking for citrus, I suppose to keep their soldiers from getting scurvy up in the islands. (Laughs) And somehow or other, cousin Bill got organised and we put a citrus factory together up in Nuriootpa, which is still there today. It’s only a storage building these days but it’s still there. And we made tin cans of orange juice, lemon

juice, grape juice, grapefruit juice, and that went off to the islands to the Americans in train loads.

So Karl, was that building near where the Appelt(?) soft drink factory was?

KS: Yeah, that’s right.

Yeah, I thought so.

KS: Next door. Well, now I think it’s a storage. Penfolds use it for something. Well, that was fine. And a lot of the fruit being processed there, I suppose it was the culled fruit as they always used for their juices. Come down from Berri and those places. Come down in bags. One of the interesting things about the whole exercise was the fact that it would’ve been about the first stainless steel ever used in the wine industry. The whole plant had been sent in from America. And I think once we’d learnt all about stainless steel it just kept going from thereon in. The industry, of course, is nearly all stainless these days. But as years went by, of course, co-operatives up the river got into the game too. They got the culled fruit for nothing, and then of course it became uneconomical to keep the thing going. So eventually it was closed down. And then of course, the end of the War, it just stagnated—the industry. Nothing happened for many years, which was a problem. And looking at the graph chart there, really it wasn’t until roundabout 1960 that things started to look up a bit.

By this time you’re in the industry, Karl?

KS: Yeah, I just got into it. And at that stage I’d been allowed to run the vineyards, which were, in those days, pretty well worn out. You can imagine after two world wars.

So what sort of grape stock—this is the Barossa vineyards?

KS: Yes.

What sort of grape stock was in there at the time?

KS: Oh, we were down to things like Doradillos and Grenache. Bit of Shiraz. But most of the country around it—Seppeltsfield—was too dry. You know, we used to get years of eleven inches of rainfall and, of course, nothing ever happened then. But I got into the game because it was an opening. I mean, most of the cousins had the main jobs and none of them liked being out in the paddock, anyway. It was a good chance to get going and have a bit of freedom. Well, interestingly enough, there was very little you could learn about viticulture in those days. I mean, who knew what it was all about? There were no text books so much. And I dredged out, believe it or not, three of them. Printed before 1890. One was on Victorian grapes, How to make wine. Another was a handbook on viticulture in Victoria, and that was 1891 that that was put out. And the third was a vine growers manual that was put out by the South Australians in 1892. And they were the sort of text books that were around. Right up until the 60’s really. Nobody was interested in growing grapes. But in there, of course, was a lot of good knowledge, and that was the sort of foundations that we had to work with if we wanted to develop something new. And, as I say, I took great amount of interest in that side of the business in the early days. And we started to dismantle some of our paddocks, which were out in very eroded soils of course in those days because everything was clean cultivated. And every time you got a thunderstorm, down used to come the mud out of the creeks. The little old creek that ran through Seppeltsfield in those days only started at the other side of Greenock. It eventually ended up down in Gawler(?), which was the Gawler River I suppose where it all joined up together. But every time they got a decent downpour, all the farms around Greenock just used to dissolve. It was, you know, that sort of soil. It was clay, easily to dissolve. And I can remember a few of the floods we had down at Seppeltsfield where the water came three or four feet deep into the cellars. And one year we had a

cask washing facility right down on the edge of the creek. No thought of pollution in those days, mind you. You washed the casks and everything ran down the river. And the creek broke its banks and went straight through this shed, and I think two or three hundred casks sailed off down the creek, down to Gawler. They were all empty. And it went up about three feet deep in the cellars. And all the underground tanks, of course, at that stage were full of wine. On the top of them they used to have manholes with a slate cover on them, which used to fit fairly snugly into the ring. And fortunately the amount of mud that came in with the water sealed them off, and the mud didn’t get into the wine, which was a good thing. So we didn’t lose anything but it was a real mess for a long time until we cleaned it up. (Laughs)

About what year would this have been, Karl?

KS: Well, it would’ve been before the 60’s. It would’ve been the 50’s sometime. Can’t remember exactly but it certainly—if you go in the cellars up there, there’s a mark on the wall to show you where it went. They eventually put a little thing there, and this is the great flood, which I guess is still there. Well, they were the good years, I suppose. Nothing much was really happening but it was an enjoyable industry to be in. But as things progressed it was obvious that we couldn’t keep on going the way we were—the old vineyards we had. Times were changing. The migrants were coming into the country. Tastes were changing. Table wine was needed. But we didn’t have much in the way of fruit for that, apart for a small amount around Great Western—Rutherglen. Barossa Valley, used to buy a bit from the growers. It was made at the Chateau Tanunda. Good black reds they were at that. But most of the vineyards were so old that there was no point in persevering with them. So they were either pulled out and reconstituted or else they were pulled out and turned back to farming. I remember having a slight go at one of the growers one day, saying, ‘The yields are pretty lousy’. He turned around to me, and said, ‘Every time

Seppelts pulls out 100 acres of vineyard in the Barossa Valley the yield for the whole area goes up’. That’s how bad our vineyards were.

Yeah.

KS: So I eventually convinced the company that we ought to get rid of some of them and move elsewhere. So the late 50’s there were activities going on in the other wine companies too, and people were moving around. It was decided that perhaps we ought to find some country up in the irrigation areas. So off we went. And first of all we looked around at Waikerie, which was the nearest area to the Barossa Valley. And the people up in Waikerie—the Town Council and the various business men up there—very smartly convinced us that it was a good place to go. So we managed to get the Directors together, and they were all still family members at that stage, before we went public, and off we went to Waikerie to talk to these people. So we bought a property on the river down at a place called Qualco. Before that Gramps had a place up at Ramco, which apparently they’d acquired from a publican that didn’t pay his bills many years before. (Laughs) And they put bit of a vineyard there. Not much. But at least it was a start. And then Yalumba went up there, and quite a number of the other people started buying blocks along the river there. They were the days when irrigation and the water up there wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t too salty at that stage. And so we developed our properties, built pump houses, put in pipes. And they used sprinklers in those days -

The monsoons?

KS: Yeah, the monsoons but, you know, it was so sandy that you couldn’t have ever flooded it very well. We didn’t want to anyway. And so the early days were the sprinklers. We learnt a lot from that because in the old days in the Barossa the trellises were about, oh, eighteen inches off the ground to get the grapes ripe because of the heat and all that stuff. Single wire. But obviously on the river you’re

going to get a lot more fruit so we started thinking what we were going to do. And there was an old gentleman by the name of Bob Hollick, who was a friend of the cousins from the Wine Board in those days. What you hear about now would be his sons or his relatives I suppose. Was up at Mildura. So we got busy and started visiting him and talking to him. Working out ways and means of building proper trellises for this area. And we ended up with a T trellis, three foot off the ground I suppose it was, with a steel bar across, and two wires. And away we went. And we were getting pretty good crops and everything like that. But the way we designed these things—was getting pretty hard to get pickers and things like that at that stage. And in the early days, of course, people weren’t all that knowledgeable about picking grapes at the right time. You know, once the sugar was right, that was it. You didn’t know much about acids and baumes and all these other things, trying to get balances. So the early wines we made, we made lots of it, but I don’t think it was as good as we could’ve made, which we made in later years. And pickers being hard to get there. If you got a mob of pickers together, then the grape growers yelled at the winemakers, ‘Take these grapes while we’ve still got the pickers, before we lose them all’. And, you know, sometimes picked them too green, sometimes too ripe.

So what did you put in there, Karl?

KS: (Laughs) In the early days, there was Doradillas. Because champagne was starting to move we were using White Hermitage, which we thought was pretty good. It was long, long before we ever heard of some of these other exotic varieties. Or couldn’t get them anyway. But that led to a lot of other developments, such as mechanical harvesting. And how do you cart grapes from River Murray in hot temperatures down to wineries? And so we started off—in Mildura somebody designed a little machine, which was nothing more than a tricycle with a single putt-putt engine in it, to mechanically pick these grapes. And really all it was was a machine

with a thing like a cart wheel, or half a dozen cart wheels (couldn’t decipher word/s) spokes. It used to roll around the vines and shake them. It worked pretty good. The only trouble is, of course, you shook one side and caught it -

And missed the other.

KS: Not over the row, and all the ones on the other side fell on the ground. (Laughs) It wasn’t all that good from that point. But it was a start. And then a couple of years later I went to California and the University of Davis was fiddling around with the same theories, but they’d got an old bomber from somewhere, from the War I suppose, which is a most fantastic looking contraption with all the radios and control things inside it. (Laughs) And they were trying to get grapes off their vine with this primitive gadget. It only took a few more years and somebody came up with a design that was an over the row machine that worked. So it was brought out from America in the off season. They’d work it in America and six months later they’d work in Australia. And go back and modify it, and go back to America and do it again. This went on for two or three years while we fiddled around with various ideas. Some of the early ones, of course, were to have a crusher on the machine and just catch the must into a tank and then whiz it off to the wineries. Then we tried putting static equipment up in the vineyard—that was crusher and a tank—and some sulphur so that you could sulphur the stuff. And we got old Shepherd, the tanker driver—if you want to talk to him, he’s an interesting bloke, too. One of the early boys.

What’s his Christian name?

KS: Couldn’t tell you right now. He lives in Clare. Mr Sheppard, anyway, that was his name. Might come back to me later. (Frank) And we talked to him about this problem of hauling must around in tankers. Because in those days you had a hole in the top of your tank and nothing else.

A couple of little valves maybe—for carting wine. But you couldn’t get the grapes out. (Laughs) So we got him to modify one of his tankers and put a great big valve in the back. About eighteen inches round. And a butterfly on it. And we worked on that for a while there. We had a little crusher up at Waikerie, and stainless steel tank, which held about 20,000 litres or something, I suppose. We’d ring him up, and say, ‘Righto, she’ll be full tonight. Come up and get it, and off down to the Barossa’. And at Chateau Tanunda we built our reception tank there with a worm in it. Used to back up on that and turn the valve on, and away all the juice went. And that was the early days of fruit transport, which of course was developed later on. And as we moved out down the South East and other places, everybody did much the same sorts of things. Worked reasonably well. We learnt a lot about picking grapes in the cool weather, and all the heat bank we didn’t have to worry about at night, and the refrigerators in the winery. And so it went on. Well, Waikerie was one thing but, as I say, I went over to University of California in the early 60’s in part of a trip around the world and we spent some time there with the Davis people in the summer school learning about how they made wine there. And after that I spent a couple of months just wandering around with their technologists around the vineyards in California, looking at this and that. That was the early stages of looking at viruses in grapevines. And they had a trial going there where they’d, in theory anyway, cleaned the viruses out of these vines. They had all the good sort from Europe there. The Pinots, the Chardonnays, and Carbernets, Merlots—you name it. They all looked pretty good. Had them all out in their little nurseries there. They looked clean as a whistle and growing nicely. So when we got home again, after being through Europe and everywhere else, it was pretty obvious that if we wanted to get into the table wine business in a big way, which most people weren’t in those days, we should start to try and

import some of these better clones. And, mind you, most of those varieties were in Australia in places like—a few in the Hunter, a great many of them at Rutherglen, but they were so full of phylloxera and virus diseases that you couldn’t use them, apart from doing trials with them, which we did from the Rutherglen station and found out the ones that we thought were going to work pretty good. And at that stage, of course, South Australia had had an embargo on importing vines since way before the turn of the century. 1890-odd, I suppose, when phylloxera first got into Victoria. Not possible. So we had to get busy and get the law changed. And that took a few years. When we were involved in those days I suppose the Grape Industry Advisory Committee—we eventually talked the government into thinking about it. But because Seppelts, in particular, had vineyards all over the place in New South Wales and Victoria we were able to convince the Victorians and New South Wales, who had other considerations—not so many embargos on things. And we got a lot of the varieties brought in to the other States where they were quarantined at Burnley for a number of years. And then after getting the law changed in South Australia, we finally got them brought into the quarantine stations in South Australia. I reckon it was about a ten year process. You know, from the time we started until we finally got some. And the sad part about it was that these things from America might’ve been virus free but they weren’t very prolific.

Is that right?

KS: No, pretty ordinary. And so that was a start. But from thereon things got a bit easier and then we were able to bring in clones from other parts of the world, which were really the nucleus of what eventually turned out to be the more modern viticulture in Australia. And that work, of course, is still going on, both here and overseas. And I know the very earliest ones—there was a bloke in the Department of Ag in those days called Wally Boehm who you may or may not be talking to, who

was more or less responsible for all this early introduction. He subsequently went off to work for Wynns, I think. But anyway, he’s got all the knowledge on those things that went along. Roundabout that time I managed to convince the company that we ought to have an experimental officer to look after all these introductions and things. So we set him up down at Great Western originally. And he had a little glasshouse down in Stawell, and we were fiddling around with all these new varieties and things and getting them started. And of course, from there he could take them up into New South Wales, or Rutherglen in Victoria, and in the other vineyards we had. And so we got a start. But he came from the CSIRO and he had, you know, some pretty good contracts(?).

So this is the mid 60’s we’re talking, Karl?

KS: Yes. His name was Murray Clayton, and he did quite a bit of work for us for a few years in this area. But as time went along—and I think in the early 70’s, of course, when we went public, there were a few purges (Laughs) and poor old Murray was one of the people that wasn’t wanted any more. But he went off to work back with the Department of Agriculture in Victoria. And I think it was through him that a great many of the developments in that State, because of all the knowledge he had and what he learnt from us, started to kick off pretty well. But before he left we’d been able to get some bits and pieces out of the Hunter River and out of Tabilk. And because of phylloxera and everything else we had to be damn careful about this stuff, but we were allowed to plant it in Victoria and New South Wales, which we did. We had a property at Barooga, which was just over the border in New South Wales on the River Murray, and we planted all these varieties out there as trials. And from that we learnt a great deal.

OH 692/147 TAPE 2 - SIDE A

NATIONAL WINE CENTRE, WOLF BLASS FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT. Interview with Mr Karl Seppelt on 28th June, 2000. Interviewer: Rob Linn.

KS: Well, a lot of the new varieties, of course, that we were playing around with were in fairly small batches in the early days of course. And there was a fair amount of resistance in the wineries amongst the winemakers with fiddling around with little bits and pieces. And we’d managed to plant about an acre of Chardonnay up at Barooga on the New South Wales side of the River Murray. And a little acre of Pinot. And for quite a number of years these grapes were harvested and used to be sent up to Rutherglen, where they were just tossed in the distillation tank. (Laughs) That’s how much the winemakers were interested in some of these new ideas. Anyway, we finally managed to get them sent down to Great Western and made little batches of wine out of them. And it was only then that we realised just really what potential these had. I know once when I was up at Rutherglen with a batch of the Roseworthy students—and we did go out to the Wine Research Station at Rutherglen, and the old chappie that was running it by the name of Doug Quinn, in those days, used to do the trials. And as Roseworthy students he used to take us into his cellar, and say, ‘Try this’, and ‘Try that’, and try something else. I think that was the first time that I ever really noticed there was a thing called Chardonnay. And it was a very nice little wine that he made there. It was different and well presented. And it sort of stuck in my mind. And it wasn’t long after that, of course, that we were able to expand the variety up, which we initially got from up in the Hunter River I think. And by the time I left Seppelts I think we had half the Chardonnay in Australia. (Laughs) Which I think has got to a stage now where we don’t want any more. And there are some of the early stages of new developments in the industry. Then of course, we had to get around and decide where these things were going to work in Australia, and what potential they had for winemaking. And Chardonnay, of course, was either a champagne material or a dry white. In

particular we knew that the Pinot was alright for putting also into champagne, or for making a burgundy out of it, if we can get it in the right places. Took quite a long time. The Chardonnay, in particular, was an interesting variety because it didn’t matter where you put it, it grew—vigorously. And produced good crops. And you could make decent wine out of it. (Laughs) Whether it was in the River or right down in Tasmania, it seemed to work alright. So that one was going okay. As far as the red Pinot went, I don’t know yet that we’ve really cracked it but I think we’re getting closer to making decent burgundies now. Or that style. Then along came the Merlots and other things, which are now starting to come into their own because there’s quite a bit about. But it sure took a long time. And I think it was the early stage—they were going way back in the middle of the 60’s when all this started. It’s only now that a lot of these varieties are in good production and there’s plenty of it. So a lot of people forget the fact that it took us so long and so few people were involved in trying to get it to go. Well, from thereon, other things took my interest. I got eventually out of the vineyards because other people took them over. Got into management. Went down to Adelaide to run the business. And other activities took place. I eventually ended up being, as I say, on the Wine Board in those days, which looked after the funding for the wine research, which I happened to be on as well because I was on the Wine Board, as a representative of that. The State association, the Federal Council, which is now the Winemakers Federation—the early days of that. And the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. I seem to have ended up being involved in most of the executive positions in all those things over a period of time, which is all good interest to me, and to the industry, in a stage when it was developing very fast. Looking at some of the interesting points in the whole exercise, I suppose the Wine Research Institute did interest me quite a bit. Because that was being funded by the old Wine Board at one stage, plus the government. And I got very much involved in how it all started, and what was going to happen, and

how it was going to develop. And I lasted on that for probably about eight or nine years. But the other exercise that I got involved with was the Show Society here in Adelaide. And I must’ve got involved in that in the early days because I was interested in grapevines and things like that. So I ended up, for some reason or other, on the wine committee. I think I’ve been on there for about thirty years. (Laughs) Talking to you earlier, we were saying who should be looking at changing the theories of judging wine around. And you’ve got to go right back into the early days, in the 60’s, and see the state of the industry in those days, and the varieties we had. They weren’t all that many of them. Initially we had outsiders judging in the wine shows. People like old Fairbrother -

Oh, yes, Fairbrother.

KS: George Fairbrother. I think he’s long gone. Somebody from Melbourne— name slips my memory at the moment. And other people who were either merchants or—in those days. And it became apparent that things ought to be changed a little bit. And we were only learning a lot about the bacteria in wine and the technology of winemaking in those days. So we started getting a few of the people like Bryce Rankine and the technicians into the wine judging scene to try and clean up the faults in the wines. Shows being a good place to do it because everybody got a chance to see them there.

I guess that’s the importance of the Shows, isn’t it?

KS: Yes, it is. And that went on for quite a number of years. And once we’d sort of got most of the faults out of the system it was felt that the next exercise should be to get a lot of the winemakers involved there so they could compare notes with each other, and develop their skills as judges and winemakers. And so for many years most of the people in the wine shows around Australia had been winemakers from the various companies. Not bad up until about—oh, I

suppose ten years ago it was fine, but then after all these takeovers started you were getting into a situation where you had six winemakers out of one multinational type group. And of course, that wasn’t too good. So we had to change the rules a bit there. We did get others coming in. A few. There was a man from—John Hanley from Western Australia, who I think ran the Shell motor company—Shell oil company. And James Halliday at that stage, who was a writer and a bit involved. Len Evans, of course, with his knowledge. And so a group of fairly knowledgeable wine people came along. And even to this day we’ve still got predominance of winemakers, and people ask why. Well, the simple answer is that you can’t find anybody else that’ll do it. There are wine writers around that we tried to get from time to time but there aren’t a great number of them. And we’re changing it again this year in Adelaide. We’ve put up another challenge which—the old Max Schubert trophy which we’re trying to develop. We’ve asked the various wine writers and people around Australia to nominate a series of wines which they believe ought to be suitable for a trophy like this. And it’s in the stage of development. I would hope that this coming wine show that the thing will work but we don’t know yet. So we’re still searching around. It’s got to a stage now where things really have to happen because there’s a group of winemakers and wine judges floating around the country where they’re going from one show to the next, which is not exactly what is desired. But anyway, we’re getting the results we expect. But in the end, when you look back at the show societies and their charter, they were originally set up for people—whatever in the animal sections, or growing crops, or anything else—to compete with each other. To improve their standards, which they’ve done—in all areas. And that’s what the Show Society’s all about anyway. But it’s getting to be a whole lot of them now. It’s getting to be a bit of a worry I think. Because every little area that started a wine business from Mudgee—in Queensland—they’re all over the place. So every year, if you put your wines in

the show, you’d go bankrupt. You know, with so many of them about. But the major capital city ones are still firing along pretty good. And they’ll continue to go. We’ve got other challenges and battles there because medals have to be respected and proved. Now I think we’ve got to the stage, looking at the common market where the capital city shows—at least you can put medals on the wines from those. They’ll be accepted overseas. But not necessarily from the smaller shows, which you wouldn’t expect anyway. So the thing will continue to evolve, I suppose, as we go along. And it’s not new, of course. Who’s been entering shows? In fact, I’ve got a couple of medals here. Look at some of these things. Australia’s been winning medals for a very long time.

They certainly have.

KS: There’s one going back to—that great grandfather probably won in 1881. Where was that won? I don’t know whether that tells you much but—we’ve got other medals here from around the world. Where did this one come from?

That’s the Adelaide exhibition—that one, Karl.

KS: Well, if you can figure out that one. I’m not quite sure. But that’s a 1923 one. There’s one here from Queen Victoria. (Laughs) Can’t tell you what year. That’s got MCC’s and X’s all over the place. I never did quite figure out how to work that one. There’s the King that came after him—1886, is a medal from London. One from the Barossa Valley here. I don’t know whether that’s got a date on it. Somewhere, I suppose. March 1919.

So they’ve been around for a long time?

KS: Oh, there’s actually some wonderful old medals that we’ve got here. In fact, I’ve used them from time to time. But these days, if you want a medal in a wine show, you’ve got to buy it.

Do you really?

KS: Yes. (Laughs) Well, look at that one. That one’s 1870. It’s a nice (couldn’t decipher word), isn’t it?

Beautiful.

KS: Big lump of copper. There’s one from 1873.

And these are all from New South Wales?

KS: Oh, they’re from all over the place. Where did this one come from here? That’s got all these MDCC’s and things on it. I couldn’t tell you what year that was. No, we won them in exhibitions in India and all over the place. And of course, that means in the old days the winemakers were pretty keen on developing their business. And we were showing wines all over the world, way back before the turn of the century. And it’s never stopped. Some companies did. Some of them didn’t. Well, the results are there. I don’t know—and if you look in the old distillery at Seppeltsfield, which was probably about 100 yards long and about half as wide, there’s not a space on the walls inside that that hasn’t got a—used to stick all the certificates on it. I think other companies did much the same. And thousands and thousands of them over the years. It was always the case, who could win? Here’s one for a most successful exhibitor. Couldn’t get any bigger than that, could you?

No, it’s fairly massive.

KS: 1960. That would’ve been Adelaide. Well, eventually in South Australia we had to cut the most successful exhibitor out because it was getting controlled by a couple of companies in the end. So we knocked that on the head. But for many years Seppelts were winning all the prizes. Take it in turns. You know, another company would come up and do well. I think for a while Orlando was doing it. Lindemans. All good stuff. And it’ll continue on. Everything’s changing in the industry, and very fast now.

And I got out of it in about ‘85, was the last real involvement I had, when the old company of Seppelts got taken over. For quite a number of years I haven’t really been involved in all the committees and things like that, apart from the Show. I’m still on that one. But even I would find it very difficult today to keep up with all the activity that’s happened in the industry. It’s finally got its act together, and they manage to co-ordinate most of the various organisations, one after the other. The Federation was formed, and the Wine Board was reformed into a corporation, and that’s changed its roles. They managed to get all the aims and objectives and things like that together from the various ones. And they’re all on the chart now, which is interesting. And they’ve got five year plans, twenty-five year plans. Now it’s working.

Is that mainly because of the export?

KS: No. This sort of thing started happening I suppose back in the 70’s and the 80’s, and by the time the 90’s came along they pretty well got it all set up. But exports up until the 80’s were not significant. But now, of course, the Federation’s got its policies. Corporation’s got its own policies, and they’re, of course, the ones that are doing most of the exporting business. And they’ve got committees and all sorts of things that are doing in that. But initially the corporation was doing promotions at home. A little bit of export promotion. They had wine bureaus—the Wine Board, I’m sorry, not the corporation. The predecessor of the corporation had people in each of the States in the wine bureaus, and they were funding that. And they were producing recipes, and cooking sessions, little promotions here and there, whatever they could get it in the newspapers. But, you know, there wasn’t a great deal of money around in those days to do much with. But their approach was not really properly co- ordinated I suppose. For the time it was alright. The Wine Board in those days had people from the industry on it. The wine industry itself, the proprietary and the private companies, co-op workers(?), grape growers, and the government. Well, that sort of a mixture was very difficult to control. Won’t make much progress because the growers wanted this, and the winemakers wanted

something else, (Laughs) and the growers wanted generic promotions on wine, and the winemakers said, ‘Why? We’d rather promote our own. Why spend the money doing that?’ And so, you know, a lot of things really didn’t happen which could’ve. So all this structuring has been a great amount of good. And we had the great—wine research was developed. The Wine Foundation was put together, the Council of Viticulture and the Society of Wine Educators. So it’s all worked out pretty well now, and everybody knows what they’re doing and they know how to fund it all. There were a few people in the industry around that time which probably deserve a lot more recognition than they have but that’s another story you’ll pick up in other places. I suppose one that you could talk about fairly quickly would be Len Evans. I’m quite sure that you’re going to see him.

Yes.

KS: Well, he started out as—when he came to Australia I think he had a few bob in his pocket and worked in a pub somewhere in Sydney. The Wine Board took him on. I think it was way back in 1965. And he was the one that really developed the wine bureaus, when they had him working in the New South Wales association out of the showgrounds. And he sort of got the whole thing co-ordinated, and he took it from there. He’s been really a wonderful promoter of the industry all these years, and done a great deal of good, apart from the fact that he’s got the old Hunter River going again I suppose. He and a few others. But even today I think he’s—well, he’s like the rest of us, I suppose, getting a bit old and retiring. But he would’ve been one of the people that started to ask for long term plans in the industry. He’s probably one of the early ones that got busy with the wine foundations and some of the other things we put together. Got the Federation to start thinking very seriously about five year plans, which were interim plans I suppose, because things take a long time to happen in this industry. And then they put together their twenty-five year plan, which I think

was pretty well underway the first time we had one of these big conventions in Sydney—the first Wine Australia, some years back.

‘96.

KS: And all the papers were put together, all the surveys were done, and surprising enough, they said that by the year 2000 we’re going to crack their billion dollars, which they did. And they reckoned there’d be a million tons of grapes crushed, which is exactly right. And things are looking pretty rosy. All depending, of course, on our dollar I suppose, and the overseas trade, and the respect that we have in the various countries we’re dealing with. But it’s all pretty tough going, and while it looks good on paper, I don’t know whether the cash flow’s really as exciting as it ought to be. Because wine, in particular, has been pretty cheap on the, you know, export price. I don’t know what it is at the moment. A few years ago when I looked at it, it was about $45 a case on the wharf. And I couldn’t make wine for that. No way. Obviously the big companies with their scale can do it, but it would be pretty hard going. So one of the things that the industry has to learn to do is to get its prices up, and you can only do that by improving your image and generally working on it all the time. With the wine export councils and all the things they have these days it can be done. As long as the industry works together, which it’s been able to do now I suppose for ten/fifteen years—no fights. There was a bit of a trouble in Western Australia a couple of years ago with the government but I think that’s sort of died down a bit. And as long as everybody’s working pretty well together, we’ll keep on improving the situation. No doubt about that. The only thing, of course, that you never have, and of course this has been a problem in the industry I suppose ever since it started, would be the government influence. And the way that they keep changing their rules. All the time I’ve been in the industry, and the number of times we’ve been to Canberra to say, ‘Hang on! Hang on! What are you trying to do to us?’ With taxes going on, taxes coming off. Bounties here and there. Export incentives. Very difficult. And you can see what they can do if they want to. What they did to

brandy over the years. Where it peaked, I suppose—there were three million (couldn’t decipher word) of brandy produced way back in the early 70’s. What is it today? It’s down to about one million. And the government revenue of course, they’ve kept it up. So they’re getting about the same revenue out of it but hardly any brandy being sold any more. They nearly killed it. Nearly killed it. Well, that doesn’t help. Also the local taxes, of course, means that your sales at home are getting pretty marginalised now with the taxes on them. And if you’re not healthy at home, how the hell do you keep on exporting? You know, you’ve got to be real healthy in the home market before you can really do any good overseas.

So that’s pretty much the story of the industry over many decades though, isn’t it, Karl?

KS: Never changes. It’s never really had much of a go. It’s always had some sort of an imposition on it. And way back up, until the change in the liquor licensing laws, the pubs had most control over liquor. And that’s going back in the 40’s, the 50’s, 60’s. Where did you get a bottle of wine? Corner of a pub. No liquor stores around in those days. Licences were hard to get.

They controlled distribution as well through the breweries.

KS: The breweries did. And if you were out of favour with the brewery, you didn’t do any business. Well, it’s changed a bit since then. Now, if you’re out of favour with one of the liquor chains, you don’t do any business either. (Laughs) But it’s been opened up quite a bit. And of course, the same with the restaurants and things like that, which there weren’t any of about in the old days. Nowadays you can go into—nearly anywhere you can buy a bottle of wine, or have it with your meals. If you can’t buy it in the restaurant, you can take it in there, which is good. Freed up quite a bit. So we’ve got a lot of good things going for us.

Well, Karl, thank you very much for talking to us. The tape’s just coming to an end again. I’ll just leave it there.