Ex-Sydneysider STUART PEARSON looks at Bathurst and its future from the perspective of a new resident.
I RECENTLY spent a lovely morning at award-winning Winburndale Wines, nestled on the side of steep slopes in Glanmire. One of the largest vineyards in the Bathurst district, it is owned by Mike and Helen Burleigh.
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I sat down with Mike and learnt about the rise, fall (and rise again) of wines in the Bathurst region.
All wine that has ever been produced in this country has been grown on vines originally brought in from overseas. And that is because Australia does not have any native wine-producing vines itself.
The First Fleet picked up vines from the Cape of Good Hope on its way to establish the penal colony of New South Wales.
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Many vineyards were established over the next two decades in the Sydney area. Even though the vines are long gone due to urban sprawl, suburbs such as Minchinbury and Vineyard reflect a former period when substantial vineyards were flourishing on the outskirts of a then sparsely populated Sydney.
While wine production in the colony was increasing, cereal crop production along the coast was falling behind population growth. To avoid famine, the interior of the colony was opened up to large scale agriculture.
The small Government outpost of Bathurst became the starting point for significant pastoral expansion.
Land grants encouraged men and women from Sydney to move west. Some were soldiers, others free men and one or two were wealthy men who already had estates in Sydney. They were granted parcels of land to farm and sufficient convicts for labour.
As well as bringing animals over the mountains, these early pioneers brought seed for crops, fruit trees and, most importantly, vines to produce wine.
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One of the earliest settlers to be granted land was explorer William Lawson. Lawson already had a successful estate at Prospect, Sydney but the offer of an even larger tract of land, and a well-paid Government position as Commissariat of Bathurst, induced him to cross the mountains again in 1815.
Between 1819 and 1824, Lawson used convict labour to construct houses and barracks on his property, which is now called Macquarie, about 10 kilometres south of Bathurst.
In Sydney, Lawson was good friends with several other wealthy landholders, such as Samuel Marsden, John Macarthur and co-explorer Gregory Blaxland. Each of these other gentlemen were growing vines in and around Sydney from as early as the 1810s and it is presumed Lawson was doing likewise on his estate at Prospect.
It is inconceivable that in developing his land grant near Bathurst in the early 1820s, he would not have planted some vine cuttings obtained from his Sydney property or the vineyards of one of his friends.
But there is no proof.
The first documented evidence of vines growing in Bathurst is from a small report published in the Sydney Gazette of 1831.
Thomas Hawkins of Blackdown estate, near Bathurst, sent samples of his wines to Sydney, which the paper commented was like a “light French wine” that met with much approval.
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It can take up to three years for vines to produce sufficient quantities of grapes to bottle. Therefore, the vines at Blackdown must have been planted no later than 1827-1828. This means that after Sydney, Bathurst is the second oldest wine-growing area in Australia.
It predates South Australia’s Barossa Valley by a decade and is older than the Hunter Valley region by at least a year or two!
A neighbour of Hawkins, George Ranken on Kelloshiel farm, was determined to get into large scale wine production as well.
In 1841, he sponsored German winemakers to the Colony who brought many vine cuttings with them, which he planted on eight hectares of well-watered soil at Kelloshiel.
He was the first to produce commercial quantities of wine west of the Blue Mountains and other landholders, such as Suttor on Brucedale, soon followed.
Wine production in Bathurst grew strongly over the next 50 years.
According to Mike Burleigh, by the 1880s there were 23 vineyards in the Bathurst district, more than anywhere else in Australia, and producing twice the quantity of wine of the Hunter Valley. Then disaster struck.
In the 1890s, the wine industry around Bathurst collapsed due to a confluence of disasters. A major economic depression caused banks to fail, wiping out the life savings of many customers, and one of Australia’s most severe droughts completely flattened the agricultural economy.
In response, the Government introduced irrigation into the Riverina district - the final blow for winegrowers around Bathurst.
Grapes were left to wither on the vine and farmers walked off the land.
By the turn of the 20th century, the wine industry around Bathurst had shrunk to negligible amounts. After the rains finally came, intensive horticulture had been replaced by broadacre farming and grazing.
Wine production in Bathurst remained dormant for another half a century, with only the occasional hobby farmer keeping what remained of the industry alive.
In the 1960s, a shift occurred in Australian winemaking and the focus turned from fortified wines to table wines.
Associated with this change in taste came a new scientific approach to wine production. Authoritative books were published about modern methods of wine growing, vines were analysed according to their various attributes and universities started teaching viticulture to raise the quality of Australian wines.
One important finding of this period was the confirmation that a band of soil along the western side of the Great Dividing Range was the most appropriate for wine growing in Australia. This band of suitable land stretches from Stanthorpe in Queensland; through Glen Innes, Mudgee, Orange and Hilltops in NSW; past Canberra into Beechworth in Victoria; and finally comes to rest around the Yarra Valley outside Melbourne.
There is only one area that is precisely at the mid-point of this 1500km range – Bathurst. So, what has happened?
Australia has 60 designated wine-growing regions, with the majority in NSW and Victoria. Adjacent to Bathurst are the designated wine regions of Mudgee, Orange and Cowra.
When this new labelling system was introduced (1992), Bathurst had too few wineries and too little production to qualify.
Since then, the number of wineries in the Bathurst region has increased to 15 and so has the quantity of wine.
Christopher Morgan of Abercrombie House is the latest wine-grower with his planting of an exhibition vineyard on his magnificent property showcasing the vines that grew historically in the region.
Depending on rainfall, the combined production of wine in the Bathurst region is estimated at up to 100 tonnes annually.
Bathurst is within reach of qualifying as Australia’s next designated wine region, which ironically will also allow it to justify its claim as the second-oldest outside Sydney.
Climatically, the Bathurst region is very similar to the Bordeaux region of France, famous for its rich, red wines. Although our rainfall is more erratic than Bordeaux, Mike Burleigh is convinced certain areas around Wattle Flat, Rockley and Meadow Flat would be perfect to produce similar robust wines.
It would seem that at least one of Australia’s richest families agrees. The Paspaley family, renowned for its pearling interests, purchased the historic homestead of Bunnamagoo near Rockley in 1992. They then converted six hectares of the 2000-hectare property into a vineyard.
Twenty-five years later, wines under the Bunnamagoo label are winning a string of local and overseas awards.
As I took my leave of Mike Burleigh, his last statement kept ringing in my ears.
“The Bathurst region is on the cusp of a great wine future,” he said. “All it needs is water and a few more people with youth, vision and deep pockets.”
Sounds like both a challenge and an opportunity.