Valmai Hankel

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

OH 692/58

Full transcript of an interview with

VALMAI HANKEL

on 19 June 2002

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 692/58 VALMAI HANKEL

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 692/58 TAPE 1 - SIDE A

NATIONAL WINE CENTRE, WOLF BLASS FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY. Interview with Valmai Hankel on 3rd May, 2001, at the State Library of South Australia. Interviewer: Rob Linn.

Now, Valmai, I was thinking how to open the tape, and, well, with your love of books perhaps we’d better open on the preliminary pages and start with yourself and something of your own background.

VH: Yes, I think you’ve got down here date of birth, education and work experience.

Well, I thought you’d choose what you want to relay of that.

VH: (Laughs) Yes, this is one that we should’ve talked a bit more about before we did all this.

That’s alright.

VH: Well, I was born on sixty-one years ago. The 1st May, 1940. Lucky enough to have a private school education at PGC from 1946 to 1957. My wine experience in those days was minimal. The earliest recollection that I have of wine is that my parents used to go to the great celebrations that used to be held at Hoffmann’s at Tanunda in the 1940’s, and my mother would come home late at night from these celebrations smelling of Port, and she’d bend over to give me a kiss and I’d smell these wonderful fumes, which of course I later discovered were Port fumes. So that was probably my first recollection of wine.

So you were born Hankel?

VH: I was born Hankel, yes. I didn’t change my name when I was married.

After leaving school I immediately started work at what was then called the Public Library of South Australia in the research service, which was the crème de la crème, the area of the Library that handled advanced enquiries. Which was a pretty funny place for a person straight from school to start. I was extremely lucky in that I had a most encouraging boss and I learnt a hell of a lot. And I was then moved kicking and screaming to the children’s library at the end of 1958. I did not want to go there. And there my boss was Dennis Hall, who later became my husband, and who was the person who really introduced me seriously to wine. His background (his wine background) was that his father was, I think it was, Cellar Manager (I mean he certainly wasn’t called that at Angove’s at Tea Tree Gully) for thirty-six years from 1910.

Tell me a little bit about Dennis’ father’s work at Tea Tree Gully, Valmai.

VH: This is actually an extract, that comes from Geoffrey Bishop’s book, Mining, Medicine and Winemaking, a history of the Angove family, which Dennis contributed about his father’s work. “His duty—Arthur Hall’s duty—was to organise and supervise all work at the cellars and in the vineyards. He kept the books, answered correspondence and directed the work of the place. An excise officer attended two or three days a week and Arthur had to use those times to ensure that wines which would be likely to be needed for sales blends were released from bond. Before each excise day the cellar foreman was given a detailed worksheet showing exactly which amounts of which wines from particular containers were to be transferred to other named vats. The excise officer arrived about 9 and left about 4. Arthur arrived between about 7.45 and 8. Cellar hands had to be ready to start work sharp at 7.15, and if the workload was heavy (and this is talking from his own experience here because Dennis actually worked at the winery for a couple of years as a young man) we went at it on the run, laying down what looked like, to an outsider, miles of crossing and re-crossing rubber pipes.

As a vat was pumped out the pump was turned off and the pipes drained of wine. Then water was pumped through. Then a solution of sodium hypochlorite, after which the pipes were drained again. More water pumped through, and drained again ready for the next operation. Then the vat had to be cleaned out, washed and prepared for its next wine. There were normally, at non vintage times, only three men on duty in the cellars. When two or three pumps sucked at the same time, things were lively. In the lean days of the 1930’s samples to be matched for sale were for Australian orders only four ounces. This is the interesting bit! Using that tiny sample, Arthur Hall had to match the sample exactly in character, colour, sweetness and alcoholic strength. To do this he had to make up a blend, sometimes of many wines whose constituents were such that they would show a profit at the named price. He would send for small quantities of the wines he had in mind, and then using only his nose, his palate, his eyes and simple arithmetic, he would make up the blend in miniature.” I think that’s amazing stuff. So that’s where Dennis, who did not become my husband until 1984, got something of his knowledge of, and interest in, wine. He was very interested in it, and I’ll come back to him a bit later on if I may.

So this is about 1958 we’re talking about in your life.

VH: Yes. And at the end of ‘58/beginning of ‘59. And in the children’s library we really worked hard. Occasionally at the end of the day (the library would close at 5.30 and we’d often stay back doing various jobs—a little small core of us) and as what you might call a reward, Dennis would produce a bottle of wine for us to share. And this was my introduction to the world of red wine, and it was always what was then called Wynn’s Coonawarra Hermitage. And I had never tasted red wine. Before then I’d had Barossa Pearl certainly, and sweet wines and so on. This was a whole new world, and I didn’t like the sweet wines particularly. That’s how I got interested in reds.

What was your very first memory of some of those bottles of the early Wynn’s Coonawarra vintages? Actually Redmans were making them then, weren’t they?

VH: Redmans started in ‘66 under their own name. I’ve still got a bottle of the ’66.

I think Redmans were making for Wynn’s at the time.

VH: They could well have been. But they certainly had their own label after that.

Yes.

VH: I’m not sure about that. I think you could be right there, Rob. Well, I can’t remember the detail but I had never tasted red wine. And it had so much fruit. It was totally different from anything else – it got me and it was dry. And that’s one of the things that I really liked about it. I know that later on in the 60’s I started buying books about wine. I can remember the very first books on wine that I bought and read absolutely avidly, and I still regard him (the author) as one of the greatest wine writers Australia has ever had, and that’s Walter James. (Laughs)

I nearly said hallelujah. (Laughs) At last! He pre-empts Max Lake -

VH: Absolutely.

- and Len Evans, and many of these people, by two/three decades.

VH: We’re talking about the 50’s when he started writing.

Yes.

VH: And then went into the 60’s. I don’t think there has ever been a wine writer quite like him. I loved his essays and so on. And he had a wonderful, wonderful use of language. An ability with words.

So these were your personal books, Valmai, you bought?

VH: I bought them myself personally. At that stage (we’re now talking about the early 60’s) I worked in the children’s library until January 1961 and then moved to the youth lending service from January ‘61 until I went overseas in April ‘64. I hope you don’t mind me rumbling all over the place here.

No, this is fine.

VH: But at the Royal Adelaide Wine Show dinner last October, last year— 2000—a woman came up to me, and said, ‘Are you Valmai Hankel?’ Of course I said, ‘Yes’, and she said, ‘You used to work in the children’s library, didn’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yes’. And she’s now a very successful computer programmer making a great deal of money. And she said, ‘I owe you a great deal. When I used to come to the children’s library, I remember that you introduced me to the novels of Rosemary Sutcliffe and they changed my life’. Now, Rosemary Sutcliffe was a writer of historical novels for both children and adults, and I think she introduced me to historical fiction, too, because as this woman said she brought times of the past alive in a way that a non fiction book never could. And that really made my night at the Wine Show. I forgot about all the wines after that. To think that, you know, I had influenced somebody’s life. Can’t take the full credit.

So we’re talking about 1964. Where do you head off to then?

VH: I head off overseas for a year.

Where do you go to?

VH: In ‘64 I leave the library, encouraged greatly by my boss (I didn’t want to go) to go overseas from April till October. I regret to say I was not in the least bit interested in wine despite Dennis’ efforts in the children’s library. He had by then moved to Sydney. And when I was overseas I drank cider most of the time. However, I do remember going to dinner in a Paris restaurant and having Corton les languettes, a French wine obviously. Might’ve been des(?)

languettes but I think it was les languettes. Don’t ask me where in France that it came from. I can’t remember. But again, it’s not a great wine by any means but it was the first French red that I had ever tasted and it was very different from the Australian reds. I was fascinated. I remember coming back a few years later and trying to get it in Australia and finding a bottle from another maker but from the same area, and it was terrible. (Laughs) I don’t remember whether the bottle was off. But I remember thinking, ‘What could I have seen in that wine that enthused me so much?’ Then, of course, I thought that, well, it was probably the occasion and the atmosphere of being in Paris and so on. I then came back and spent a few months in the country lending service because I couldn’t go back to my old job in the youth lending service because somebody was in it. And then aged twenty-five I was put in charge of the reference services branch of the State Library. I was put in charge of a whole lot of men and women, and some of the men were much older than me and were fully qualified, and how they must have felt about having a young unqualified girl in charge of them I hate to think. Soon after then—‘67—I went across to Brisbane for a conference, and on the way back stopped off at Sydney and went out to Dennis Hall’s place at Mount Kuring-gai at North Sydney. And for the occasion of my visit he had bought—I forget what it was now but it was a first growth red. Might’ve been Latour. Might not have been. I can’t remember. And he also took me to lunch at a Sydney restaurant—how could I ever forget its name? But I know that the wine we had was 1964 Chateaux Calon Segur, which is a third growth, I think, (couldn’t decipher word) Bordeaux wine. And that made a great impression on me, needless to say. (Laughs)

Was it one of Oliver Shaul’s(?) restaurants?

VH: Oh, how can I forget it? No, it wasn’t Oliver Shaul. Did he have a revolving restaurant?

Yes, he did. He had a number.

VH: We did go there. Meanwhile, as I said, in 1967 I went off to Brisbane for a conference and stayed in Sydney for a couple of days. And I suppose that’s—this is getting a bit personal here but that was about the time when we fell in love. And whenever I had a chance for holidays I’d head off to Sydney, without telling anybody because my husband was still married at that stage although he hadn’t lived with his wife for years. But the wine relevance of all this—there is one (Laughs)—is that for the occasion of my visits he would go (I think it was Farmer’s at Hornsby, which had a wonderful selection of wines) and buy the world’s greatest French wines and we’d go home and we’d have them at his little place at Mount Kuring- gai. And that’s what seriously introduced me to drinking wines. I know we had Grange, but we also had a lot of the great French clarets and burgundies.

Now, this is -

VH: We’re now talking about ‘67/’68/’69.

What’s your memory of the Australian wine industry at the time? Do you have any memory at all of that era?

VH: I don’t think I was particularly interested in what the industry was doing. Isn’t that a dreadful thing to say?

I can understand that.

VH: I was interested in what wines were out, and I know I would certainly go to bottle shops and pour over labels. And I would take the recommendations of Walter James, wouldn’t I? I remember trying All Saints’ wines on his recommendation. But as for any recollection of what was going on in the industry—I can say that, with my mother, we’d frequently visit one particular winery down at McLaren Vale, or out of McLaren Vale, Kay Bros, Amery.

To see Cud?

VH: To see Cud Kay. Indeed. And to buy the flagons, particularly of his superb—I think it was labelled—Dry Red.

Yes. Grenache and Mataro.

VH: Yes. I thought it was a superb wine, and we’d buy flagons of it, and drink flagons of it.

This is the memorable half gallon barrel flagons?

VH: Yes. I’ve still got a whole lot of the flagons, without much wine in them. (Laughs)

At the time you didn’t know a lot about flagons?

VH: No. I didn’t drink a lot of wine. But another person at the State Library with whom I worked had given me a ride home because he lived in my area, a bloke called George Buick, the one who encouraged me to go overseas because I might never get another chance. And I didn’t want to. He was the one who told me about Kay Bros’ flagons. Five shillings or something a flagon.

Yes.

VH: I mean I didn’t know about this, and he said, ‘Don’t go and get them from a bottle shop. Go down to the winery and meet Cud’. Of course, the superb view from the cellar door there! And I can also remember the winery cat but that’s got nothing to do with the subject either. (Laughter) It was around for very many years. And the flagon Port. I don’t think we drank many whites. I think it would’ve been mainly the red and the Port, that I can recall. But as for the state of the wine industry at the time, I have no salient observations to make whatsoever.

So, Valmai, where does the story go from your point of view from there? There must come a point where the understanding begins to grow beyond the barrel flagon. (Laughter)

VH: I suppose the understanding did begin with Dennis’ encouragement. Meanwhile, in the State Library, Thomas Hardy, or whatever their name was then (Thomas Hardy & Sons, I think it might’ve been called then), through Tom Hardy and Ken Hardy, had been approached I gather by Hedley Brideson, then Principal Librarian, to make a gift of money to the Library, which was by then called the State Library, to establish the Thomas Hardy Wine Library. Now, at that stage I was in charge of the reference services branch, which included the reference library. So my job was to select the books for this collection. And I did know a bit about wine books. Certainly about Australian books. I didn’t know a great deal about overseas books except the writings of André Simon, as you would know. What then happened was that after we’d spent I think a fair bit of the first $500 we had books to make a show, we had a grand ceremony where the Thomas Hardy Wine Library was inaugurated. It was then expected to last for five years. They were going to make this annual donation of money for five years. And by that time—we’re talking 1968—Hedley Brideson had left the Library.

So the Thomas Hardy collection gets launched in fashion, Valmai.

VH: That’s right, in 1968, intending for there to be a five year thing, and then it would be reviewed. Yes, as I was saying, by that time Hedley Brideson had left and I was the one who took over the negotiations with the family. Barbara Hardy was always a very enthusiastic supporter. Tom and Ken both died, as you know, and I then had a little bit of work occasionally in persuading them to continue to give us money, and particularly to keep up with inflation. However, I’m pleased to say that BRL Hardy today are still supporting the collection. And also the Hardy family are, too. So we’ve got double support. What happens is that they give us an annual donation and we select the books that go into the Thomas Hardy Wine Library.

Valmai, can we talk about that particular library now for a little while? Tell me how it began to evolve from those first purchases.

VH: We’re talking about the Thomas Hardy Wine Library, or are we talking about the State Library’s wine collection?

We’re talking initially about the Thomas Hardy, and then moving into what happened then.

VH: Probably do it the other way around, shouldn’t we?

Well, do it the other way.

VH: Because actually the State Library’s collection of wine literature goes back to 1834 in London, before the first European settlers arrived on the mainland. And at that stage a group of gentlemen intending to emigrate formed, as you will know full well, the South Australian Literary Association, which had another name as well, and one of its members was Robert Gouger who donated a collection of books to the society for use in the new settlement. One of those books was called Busby’s New South Wales, and it was actually a book by James Busby, Australia’s first wine writer, about New South Wales and New Zealand as a place to emigrate. And it had a footnote—has still a footnote in it of about 1,000 words in which Busby talks about his belief that New South Wales will one day become the major wine producing colony for the mother country. And I like to think of some of South Australia’s early settlers reading Busby’s book and reading that long footnote and thinking, ‘We’re not going to let New South Wales get away with this. We’re going to plant vines in South Australia, too’. So you could say that the collection goes back as far as that, stretching things a little bit. And we still have about forty volumes from that very first library to come to South Australia. Now, over the years, up until the Thomas Hardy Wine Library was established in 1968, there was certainly an interest in buying books on wine, and I know that last century some of the wonderful ampelographies which were published in France were acquired by the Library.

Now, an ampelography in this instance is a book which describes the characteristics of particular vines and often illustrates them. So what you get is the botanical description of the plant, the colour and shape of the grapes, and the leaves and so on. And often, but not always, a statement of the sort of wine that that grape produces. These particular books, the earliest of which was published in 1857, also have absolutely wonderful coloured illustrations of the grape varieties, and they’re much loved by decorators of cellar door sales areas and so on. And in fact, the South Australian Wine & Brandy Corporation published four posters from some of our books illustrating Cabernet, Shiraz, Riesling and Chardonnay. Now, I know that some of those at least were acquired last century. So there was a bit of an interest back in—when I say last century, I mean the 19th century—a bit of an interest then in buying material on wine. But I think it probably took off in the mid 60’s and was very much boosted by the Thomas Hardy Wine Library, whose main aim was to buy contemporary books on wine rather than historical books, although there are certainly historical books in the collection as well. The oldest of which is 1692, I think. It is a book of verse—satirical book of verse—about wine. But we try to keep up with the current output. I suppose with my interest in the literature of wine, I have certainly done a fair bit in the intervening years to build up the collection extensively, particularly with rare books, and also with wine labels. And in 1972, we held an exhibition, for which I coined the word oenotypophily, which I took to mean ‘love of wine and print’, and this was an exhibition of wine labels. And to my knowledge this would’ve been one of the earliest exhibitions in Australia of wine labels, I would think. And that was at the stage when we started in this library seriously collecting wine labels. We wrote to every winery in Australia asking them to send us labels. We had a pretty good response but, of course, what happened was that they sent us some and then they never sent them again. And we had a follow-up for South Australian wineries a few years ago. And then because last year we launched our wine literature of the world website we received quite a few

donations as a result of that. But we’ve got a lot of gaps—particularly pre 1970’s. The 70’s are a particularly strong area of our collection because of the time when we put effort into doing it.

Valmai, going back to the origins of the Hardy library, what were the types of book you were purchasing originally for that?

VH: Non technical stuff, Rob. Mainly books that would’ve been aimed at consumers. The Walter James’ books which, of course, we already had them because they would’ve been published before ‘68, but I think at least in a couple of instances we bought later editions, or a special binding, or something like that. We’ve concentrated all along, not just on Australian wines but of wines of the world, and not just in English but in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch etc. What have I left out? So we try to cover the world of wine, not just the Australian world of wine. But we do not, and we still don’t, buy much in the technical field. We leave that to the scientific library, such as Adelaide University and so on. The Australian Wine Research Institute.

With the social side of the collection then, what have been some of the changes over time that you’ve noticed in the types of books being produced?

VH: Well, if you go back to the 19th century—I think you can say this about Australia—you can say that most of the wine books produced at that stage were written by people who were themselves winemakers, and often they were doctors. Dr Alexander Kelly is a prime example of this. Of the people who were winemakers who wrote books, there was William McArthur whose book came out in 1844. Hubert de Castella, Swiss bloke who wrote some of my most favourite wine books ever because he writes with such enthusiasm. Gone a total blank about the others. Isn’t that ridiculous? But they tended to be written by people who were themselves winemakers, and I suppose—it’s interesting that in the early part of the 20th century in Australia very few wine books were published at all. In 1903 a journalist

wrote a book called The South Australian Vintage, Ernest Whitington. But apart from that and a few others, until the 1950’s when two major—was it the 1950’s?—I’ll look at my sheet guide here. Oh, no, the first one came out in 1943. I’m talking about the books of John Fornachon, who was the first director of the Australian Wine Research Institute. Bacterial Spoilage of Fortified Wines came out in 1943, and Studies on the Sherry Flor in 1953. Both books were of world importance. I’d like to say something about Fornachon, who’s another unsung hero, at some stage.

Well, actually what we might do is I’m going to have to turn the tape over now, Valmai. We might digress for a few minutes about John Fornachon because I think he’s an enormously important character.

TAPE 1 - SIDE B

So Valmai, John Fornachon. Tell us a bit about this really amazing gentleman.

VH: Yes, he’s one of my heroes. His daughter, Elizabeth, I first met at school in 1946 and we’re still excellent friends. I mean, she’s probably my best friend. And so I remember meeting John Fornachon, who lived from 1905 to 1968, but unfortunately, except for a few years before he died, I didn’t have much of an interest in wine either. I think of what an opportunity I missed. He was a wine microbiologist. He studied oenology and viticulture at Roseworthy and got his Diploma of Agriculture in 1925, and later went on to the University of Adelaide getting a Bachelor of Ag Science in 1934, Master of Science in ‘43. And back in ‘34 he started work at the request of what later became the Australian Wine Board, researching the diseases of wine and wine spoilage, which was a major problem in the industry then because they had no idea what caused the problems that they were having,

which went back to the 19th century and earlier. He was working under Professor Sir John Cleland. His research was moved to the Waite Institute in 1935, and he worked under great difficulties because he had very few facilities with which to work and not a great deal of financial encouragement either. But in 1938, the year of his marriage, he sailed with his wife to California and carried out research work in that time, and came back to Australia where he published Bacterial Spoilage of Fortified Wines in 1943. Bryce Rankine later described the book as a classic in oenological research and of inestimable value to the Australian wine industry. He then went on to examine flor yeasts, and his second book Studies on the Sherry Flor came out in ‘53 and, as I said, it is still regarded as the definitive study on the subject.

And this is at a time, Valmai, just interrupting for a tick, when fortified wine, particularly sherries, are seen as the peak of wine.

VH: Yes. Exactly.

So the importance of the research to Australia and the world is that this is the big product that you like.

VH: Yes. How can you equate it? Can you equate it with research into Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay today, or something?

No, I don’t think you can actually. Because, I mean, we’re talking about a tradition going back millennia, particularly with flor sherries. And Fornachon, although not being a European, understood the process beyond the Europeans. It’s an extraordinary thing.

VH: Yes. Course, he was of Swiss background but that’s irrelevant.

I didn’t know that.

VH: Yes. Oh, yes. His father was a Swiss born electrical engineer.

Oh, there you go!

VH: And the influence of the Swiss in the Australian wine industry is something that I don’t think’s been -

De Castella.

VH: Yes. De Pury. There has been a little book on them.

Was Foureur French or Swiss?

VH: I don’t think he was.

He was French, wasn’t he?

VH: Do you mean Foureur? I think he was French.

How do you say it?

VH: F’rer. That’s how I’d say it.

And you were saying just how so many things have been left out of the history of the industry in Australia. We have the Fornachons and the Swiss. But coming back to Fornachon with his Swiss parentage, what were the other things about him that made him so outstanding, do you think?

VH: Well, the Australian Wine Research Institute opened in 1955 and he was its first Director of Research, as it was then called. And he was in that position until he died in 1968. And not only was he running the Institute but he was a wine judge throughout Australia, including being Chairman of Judges in Adelaide. But he judged at Sydney and—not too sure what the other capital—obviously Melbourne had one at that stage. And he was very highly regarded as a wine judge. Between 1936 and ‘68 he published eighteen research papers. He wrote an account of the State’s wine industry for the book called Introducing South Australia, which came out in 1958. He did the English language section of a dictionary for the food and agricultural organisation of the United Nations. In 1963 that came out. (Couldn’t decipher words— possibly a name or book title). He also travelled overseas again in ‘63, and he was a lecturer at the University of California at Davis in ‘63. He gave a paper on malolactic fermentation in Bordeaux to an international

symposium, and was also a member of the Australian delegation to meetings of the committee of experts on wine and spirits of the Council of Europe. And he was, with it all, an extremely modest man. As I say, I knew him as a young person. He was about six foot five inches tall, with a most distinctive craggy face. Curly hair. He’d smoke a pipe. Not a thing highly regarded amongst winemakers today probably but so what? He wasn’t a winemaker anyway. A quiet sense of humour. He was President of the South Australian Branch of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science, a member of the American Society of Oenologists. And what he liked was working in his laboratory. He hated the paper work associated with it. And who can blame him of that? I suppose today, even though the library at the Australian Wine Research Institute is named after him, he’s a name that’s forgotten, and he did so much at a critical time in the Australian wine industry—so much research work. And so much work to improve standards of winemaking in Australia.

Well, I had it put to me that the technological advances with people like Colin Gramp behind them, and the technological chemical advances of Fornachon, were the crossroads for the modern Australian industry. From that point on the advance is constant.

VH: Yes.

And Fornachon is one of the distinctive prime movers of a new approach to winemaking that’s not just trial and error.

VH: Exactly. Which is the way it worked in the 19th century, and early 20th.

Yes. Based on sound chemistry.

VH: Yes.

So he has to be one of the great figures of this modern period.

VH: Exactly. But I suppose it’s because he was working behind the scenes. He wasn’t an up-front winemaker, who didn’t have his name blazoned over bottles of wine.

Although there’d be very few winemakers of that era in the 50’s and 60’s who wouldn’t have paid him his due.

VH: Absolutely right, Rob, yes.

I think that’s staggered me really is that this isn’t just pushing South Australia for South Australia’s sake but those people just happened to be here at the time.

VH: Yes. Exactly. And they were well aware that the work they were doing was of world importance, not just of local importance. But, as you say, they happened to be here at the time—in South Australia.

Well, just moving from Fornachon again. Unfortunately he dies very young really.

VH: Yes. Sixty-three. That’s very young. Excessively young.

That was at the time when people retired at seventy.

VH: Yes.

And many said that he had his best part of his career to come. So it was just beginning to get started.

VH: Yes, exactly.

And probably only Bryce Rankine comes to rank alongside him I think.

VH: Well, Bryce Rankine certainly always said to me, and it’s in his writings, that Fornachon was his hero. He owed so much—and Bryce still says this—he owes so much of his knowledge and his inspiration to Fornachon.

I mean, what’s beginning to intrigue me, Valmai, is that the collection here at the State Library, particularly the Hardy collection and the amassing of the wine books, is happening at the time at which Fornachon’s work is at its height, and the work of Walter James, and then Len Evans through the Bulletin, and Max Lake -

VH: If I can interrupt rudely here.

Len Evans, as well as being the first regular newspaper columnist in Australia, not surprisingly put out the first magazine for consumers called The Wine Buyer, which began in 1968. A little roneoed sheet, whose first issue had a comparative review of Grange and Chateaux Lafite. (Laughs) But having said that, I suppose one should say that really the epicurean magazine was going before then. Do you remember that?

Yes, I do.

VH: 1966 it began, with its wonderfully quirky covers. And had a lot on wine as well as on food. Len and, as you say, Max Lake. Dan Murphy, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent—was the 60’s when it all became much more consumer orientated.

And Dr Benwell.

VH: WS Benwell, yes.

At about the same time.

VH: Yes.

It seems to me, Valmai, if I’m right, that this is a pivotal point in Australian wine history—the 60’s.

VH: Yes. Totally. Couldn’t agree more. Well, okay, people were still mainly drinking—well, drinking more fortifieds than they were table wines but it was gradually beginning to change. Certainly in the mid 60’s. And I think you can see that in the sort of wines that are written about in the writings of people like Evans and Max Lake and Dan Murphy. And Dan Murphy—was it ‘68? I think it was ‘68—did the very first classification of Australian wines, which is fascinating reading today.

Extraordinary it seems to me. This is also the time that people like Tom Cullity in Perth is pioneering Margaret River.

VH: Are you interviewing him?

I’ve interviewed him.

VH: Oh, good!

Another South Australian, of course. (Laughs)

VH: Yes. Let us not forget that Dr John Gladstones was the discoverer of Margaret River. Very important book of his, Viticulture and the Environment.

In Western Australia there’s a man like Jack Mann, who has taken all these young things under his wing and encouraged them. Why does it happen at this period, and why the sudden interest in wine that could even lead to a collection like the Hardy collection being founded? It’s a very interesting period.

VH: Yes, it is. There’s probably economic reasons, too, that I’m not sufficiently familiar with. And changing tastes. Well, the other thing I’m sure has got something to do with it is the carrying over from the Olympic Games and the introduction of a lot of people from different cultures into Australia, many of whom came from wine drinking countries, who didn’t drink fortified wines. Who drank red and white table wines. I’m sure that had a heck of a lot to do with it all. It was a whole collection of factors that all came together. And books were an important part of it.

So, Valmai, from this point on, how does the library’s collection of wine literature evolve? Did you have a rationale? (Laughter)

VH: Well, my rationale was: buy anything that you could possibly get your hands on and accept any donations you could possibly get your hands on, unless it was too technical. And we really have, with a few exceptions, tried to steer clear of that. One of the things that has, I think, distressed me is that its only fairly recently that we’ve been even slightly proactive in chasing the records—the archival records—of wineries, and as a researcher you would appreciate this I know. While we have some wonderful photographs of the wine industry in South Australia, grape growing and winemaking at the end of last century and the beginning of this, we—it’s easy to be critical after the event but we didn’t do enough I think. I can say this because it was out of

my hands. It was not the area of the library for which I was responsible. But we didn’t chase winemakers and winery owners to try and get their journals and records and ledgers and diaries, and even wine labels, and so on. And we’ve all heard horrific stories about bonfires, and some of them not so long ago when takeovers have happened and winery records have been destroyed. Because it was policy to wait for things to come to you. You didn’t go out and seek them. And I suppose that’s a product of the time, too. But as far as archival materials go, we do not try to get material from other States. We leave that to the appropriate State Library.

Valmai, we’re still dealing with this—we’re talking about the end of the 60’s, and you were saying that the collection at the State Library grows almost ad hoc as you can get your hand on things, and the one thing the library—you were also saying that unfortunately there wasn’t a proactive seeking for company records at the time.

VH: Yes. In Archives. It’s a separate section of the library, as you would know.

Is there a comparable growth in public interest in the collection?

VH: We’re not very good at publicising ourselves, I don’t think. I now get phone calls and e-mails from people around Australia who want to know whether I can help with such and such an enquiry. And students, and school students, and so on. Well, is there an interest in the collection? Can I change the question to say that is there an interest in wine writing and books about wine? I think there’s—stating the obvious I know—no doubt about that because of all the wine courses. Every newspaper worth its salt has a wine column in it, or there is some talk that some papers overseas have eliminated their wine columns. But there seems to me to be an incredible interest in finding out as much as you possibly can about wine. I find the whole subject of wine writing a fascinating one. And I very strongly believe that wine writing to be any good has got to be of interest to people who don’t drink wine as

well as the people who do. Because wine is a fascinating topic whether you drink the stuff or not because it’s got such an interesting history.

There’s also a lot of mythology, isn’t there? (Laughs) Valmai, when do you, yourself, start writing?

VH: Ah, yes! Well, that would’ve been in the late 70’s. Anders Ousback, in the mid to late 70’s, was writing a column in the Melbourne Age in the green pages of the Age, as they were then called, which were actually the media pages but also had a few other bits and pieces. We used to buy The Age in those days, every day. This was the highlight of the week for me. And he’s another person that should be on your list. And he wrote a column about 19th century Australian wine books. And I wrote a letter to him to say how much I enjoyed the column because by that stage—the 70’s—I was seriously buying books for myself on wine as well as for the State Library. No conflict of interest, I hasten to add, because I’d never buy anything that the library didn’t already have. And he was interested in my interest in the subject and the State Library’s collection. So he came over to Adelaide and that was my introduction to French champagne. We had a bottle of Pol Roger at Ayers House. And he was putting together a book at that stage. And he asked me, and Dennis, to contribute to it. And this is the book. And to my knowledge there’s never been another book in Australia like it, before or since. It’s called The Australian Wine Browser, edited by Anders Ousback, and it’s got some early examples of the writing of people like James Halliday. It would be one of James’—1978, the book came out I think. Or was it ‘79? ‘79. It would be a fairly early example of James’ writing, although he was not a teenager then by any means. And it had David Lake, Max Lake’s son, in it. And Leo Scofield(?), Mick Bullard(?), who is now Master of Wine and a very important person. Len Evans, of course. And a few other people. And this is a sort of collection of essays about wine. And Dennis and I contributed an article about 19th century Australian wine books, which we called The Eager Oenographers, and I also did an article on what I still maintain are the most beautiful wine labels ever produced in

Australia—the Woodley’s Treasure Claret labels—designed by Wytt Morro. So that was my earliest example of wine writing. Dennis and I then together did a few articles for the Wine & Spirit Buying Guide, which was published in Sydney, and which was later taken over— amalgamated with Wine State magazine. Didn’t do anything much for a while then. Then in the 1990’s I did a few articles for the Adelaide Review. Not on wine. On other topics. Mainly related to books. And when the Adelaide Review’s wine writer of the day in 1995, Duncan Miller, decided that he didn’t want to do it any more, Christopher Pearson asked me to become the wine writer, and I nearly had a fit. There was no way that I could do it. One, I didn’t know enough. Two, there was no way I was going to be able to meet a monthly deadline. However, he was very persuasive and pointed out to me that I had been Chairman of the consumer panel of the Advertiser Hyatt South Australian Wine of the Year Awards for six years. That I’d also been an associate judge at the McLaren Vale wine show. At that stage, twice. I’ve done it again since. And that I drank a lot. (Laughter) Read a lot about wine and knew more than I was giving myself credit for. So I agreed to do it for a couple of months on trial, and that was in October ‘95. And I’m still doing it. God knows why! But I get a great deal of fun out of it. I really enjoy doing it. I’m very aware that I know nothing. Especially comes home to me, Rob, when I go to functions such as a couple of weeks ago, the Barossa Vintage Festival. And tomorrow going down to Langhorne Creek when also present are the Max Allens, and the Tim Whites, and the Peter Forrestals and so on, and the James Hallidays of this world. And there’s little old me. And I think, ‘What am I doing here?’ (Laughs) But I get a lot of fun out of it, and I’m also doing a column—a very superficial column, I might add—on wine history for Wine State magazine, which comes out every two months. And I’ve had a couple of articles in the Australian and New Zealand wine industry journal, and I’d

love to do a bit more for them, which when I retire I hope I might be able to. Perhaps most importantly of all—my late husband, Dennis Hall, really did most of the work on this, I did the research but he did most of the writing—and it’s something that I am extremely proud of, are the introductions to the facsimile editions of Alexander Charles Kelly’s The Vine in Australia and Wine Growing in Australia, which was published by the David Earl Press in 1980. And we did one introduction on Kelly’s life and influence, and by golly, what an influence he had! And another one that Dennis entirely wrote on winemaking practices in the 19th century— viticulture and winemaking practices in the 19th century. And both of those introductions were very highly praised. And, as I say, I’m very proud to have been associated with them. So it sort of all began there.

So, Valmai, you were belittling yourself a minute or two ago. Just tell me why you think it has worked though. Because I know the public just enjoy your work a lot.

VH: Well, I get comments, but then people are never going to say to your face that they think that your writing’s dreadful, are they? Perhaps people I know are too polite. I’m sure that they think it, Rob. I think my writing is a bit boring, to say the least, but it’s also a bit different. And when you think about it, what I find really fascinating about wine writing in Australia, whether its books or newspapers or magazines, most (but this is beginning to change, thank goodness) wine writers are men. There I was up at the Barossa Vintage Festival a couple of weeks ago and I was the only woman wine writer amongst the group of about ten. Now, I know that we have Jenny Port(?) in Melbourne, and we have Heather Brittain who does a lot of work for Wine State, and increasingly we’ve got other young people coming up, like Sophie Otten and Marilyn Clarken, but the fact remains that most wine writers in Australia are blokes. Why is it so?

I think it’s a changing ethos, too. You find it amongst winemakers. It’s been a traditionally male mould but that’s also changing.

VH: And how! Oh, there’s thousands of them. Thank goodness! And, of course, Jenny Port(?) herself put out a book with a wonderful title of Crushed by Women. (Laughter) But I don’t know whether it is that women write differently from men. I shouldn’t say this because it sounds like sour grapes and it certainly isn’t meant to be. And I very much enjoy the writing of all of the blokes, especially Max Allen. But there’s a sort of—I can only call it blokiness about a lot of it. I don’t know how else to describe it.

That’s the industry though.

VH: Yes, I suppose it is. I suppose it is, it is changing. There’s no question of that. And I like to think that in thirty years time when I’m pushing up the grapevines, as it were, the proportion will at least be equal if not in the balance of women as far wine in the media goes.

I wonder whether if it hasn’t been another Australian pioneering effort that people like Colin Gramp with Barossa Pearl, Wolf Blass with his view of a wine that’s a palate for women, which was his ethos -

VH: Yes.

- that hasn’t actually led the world in understanding how to get more people to enjoy wine.

VH: Well, I wonder because when you think of England, England has, and has for many years, had a lot of women wine writers. Serena Sutcliffe. Jancis Robinson. Joanna Simon. I’m trying to think of all the others. There’s quite a lot of them in London. And something I have been meaning to do some work on, and still haven’t, is who was the first woman to publish a book on wine. All I can tell you is that I think the first person to write about wine for women was a physician by the name of Robert Druitt, who in 1865 in a wonderful book called A Report on the Cheap Wines of—and then listed a whole lot of countries. The long title included with short notes of (couldn’t decipher word) wine for the ladies, which was sort of tasting exercise on wine, which I also think

might’ve been one of the very first examples of—how can I put it?—a taste test, as it were. And he included grapes in this little exercise that you had to do as well as including wines made from that grape. But it can’t have gone down too well because when the second edition of his book came out in 1873 it wasn’t there. But who was the first woman wine writer in the English language? I don’t know. It’s something, as I say, I’ve been wanting to look out. We know, as we were saying, that, well, women winemakers in Australia certainly go back to the last century.

Valmai, I’ve just really enjoyed hearing something of this really diverse life that you’ve had with wine. I just want to say thank you very much for sharing some of those thoughts.