VISITORS TO ASH ISLAND
Ludwig Leichardt visit to Australia
A different, and little known, aspect of Leichardt visit to Australia. Excerpts from The Newcastle Herald Weekender magazine, 5th January 2013.
The Explorer and his Vintage Wine
What is the most valuable Australian wine? Many will automatically say Penfold’s Grange Hermitage. A collection of 40 vintages, from 1951 to 1990, has sold at auction for $138,000. That’s a staggering $3450 for each bottle. But what is the greatest impact on the desirability of a bottle of wine? Afficionados of the wine industry say that a wine that is very rare and difficult to find will push the demand, and the price, higher. And if a wine has a certain charm, or if the winemaker has a certain ‘reputation’, this also increases the pnce.
There is a wine that is certainly so very rare, there may not be any left surviving. More surprisingly still, the story of how the wine came to be made is largely unknown. If the wine was discovered, it would certainly demand a higher price than even Penfold’s Grange Hermitage. What wine could this be? We must first go back to the winemaker. The odd thing is, he isn’t even known as a winemaker. Ludwig Leichhardt is far better known as one of Australia’s early explorers ….
Full of enthusiasm, Leichhardt had selected Australia because of his burning ambition to make discoveries – of pretty well any kind, be it plants, minerals or fossils, and also to explore and discover new lands ….
After I finish my botany course I shall go to Newcastle on Hunter’s River, to collect as many geological specimens as I can. Fate appeared to make this inevitable when the Scott brothers appeared to give Leichhardt an invitation to visit their properties. In July he wrote to his good friend Dr William Nicholson in England:
I’ve entered into a very stimulating association with a Mr Robert Scott and his brother Walker Scott. I have certainly found their collection of minerals and shells instructive in the extreme. Their properties are near Newcastle and Maitland on Hunter’s River, and I shall hie myself there as soon as my lectures are right out of the way …
When I came to Newcastle I too was convinced that this part of the country could very quickly become covered with flourishing vineyards, given the necessary labour; and that although we can hardly expect Madeira [wine] it will be possible to produce a really good wine. I spoke to Mr Scott about it … he seems to want us to try our hands at pressing wine as soon as the time is right for it … quite a number of land-owners are making serious preparations …
Leichhardt travelled endlessly. With a curious mind and a sense of purpose, he collected plant and mineral specimens wherever he could, and in the process, charmed the early settlers. Early in the new year, in January, 1843, Leichhardt travelled along the Hunter Valley. He wrote to his brother in law in Germany: Vineyards of some size have been laid out at several places. The vines withstand even the most oppressive heat, the leaves keep fresh and green, the bunches are big and the grapes large, yet the stones are smaller and further apart than J ‘ve seen in the better wine-growing districts in Europe. No good wine has yet been pressed, though many have tried. The wine is never the less quite palatable. Whilst I was at Newcastle I was entertained by a Mr Walker Scott, and here at Glendon I am the guest of his brother, Mr Helenus Scott. They have about 80, 000 acres of land, on which about 9, 000 head of horned cattle are running almost wild, and a number of herds of sheep are being moved about by shepherds … ” …
A fortnight ago I arrived at Glendon, but before this saw the vineyard of Mr Kilman, who treated me with a very good glass of wine of his own making … Glendon is like a little village; the cottage of Mr Scott being surrounded by a number of buildings, stables, stores, workshops, and lower down a long street of little cottages for the people which Mr Scott employs on his farm. A fine garden and a nursery and a vineyard are connected to the farm …
Having accomplished much, and running short of supplies, Leichhardt rode back to his temporary home base at the Glendon homestead. This is where a most unexpected event occurred. In fact, it would be difficult to believe, if it wasn’t written in Leichhardt’s own hand. He wrote about it to his friend Lieutenant Lynd in Sydney: Let me tell you how I was occupied these last 12 days. When I came back from Mt Royal I found that Mr Scott had not yet done vintage and that his grapes were spoiling fast. My wine mania rose and I set immediately to work to show my skill. The small burgundy grapes were collected and crushed by two rafters, which I had seen to crush the beetroot, and which Mr. Scott had made according to my plan. I put the juice of an excellent quality, which I determined by a saccharometer I made myself, into a big wine cask and left it to ferment in a kind of cave dug into the neighbourhood of the vineyard. Two days afterwards the young and sweetwater grapes were gathered and pressed and put also to ferment on another plan, which will prove of great influence on colonial wine making. After having put the liquid in the cask one shuts it airtight and passes one leg of a bent tin or lead tube ( a syphon) into the bung hole.
The external leg is placed in a mug filled with water, preventing any communication between the interior of the cask and the external air. This method is followed in France and I saw it followed here in the fermentation of sugar beet. The carbonic acid formed during fermentation pushes its way through the water, but the atmospheric air never can get into the cask. You see that I had two improvements, ( that of crushing the grapes with rollers instead of treading them with feet, and the syphon) in my favour. The rainy weather commenced and kept the temperature 68 to 71 degrees ( 69 degrees being the regular temperature for good fermentation). This proved also very favourable. My juice fermented in 10 days and when I racked it off it proved to be a strong spirituous wine. I have put it now into other casks and time must clear it. You shall assuredly taste it one day. This success under other very unfavourable circumstances will prove useful to me in case I have to turn my attention to wine making. Leichhardt also wrote to Herr Kirchner, the Consul for Hamburg in Sydney, apparently pleased with his efforts: … if you happen to see Mr. Robert Scott tell him that there’s a good ’43er [vintage} awaiting his return to his pleasant estate, but I mustn’t sing its praises too long before they’re due …
©Rod Julian 2013 www.rodjulian.com – Page 9
What type of person would drop everything, and voluntarily spend twelve days working hard for a new found friend? Having made the wine, Leichhardt then travelled by horseback, through the New England district up into Brisbane and then on to the Bunya Bunya mountains. He followed what today would be called a rough bridle track through the bush. Months later, during July, while in these remote mountains, his thoughts obviously went back to the wine he had made back at Glendon. He wrote to Helenus Scott: My wanderings have been extended far beyond my original intentions, as always some opportunity was offered for visiting new parts of the colony, and I am almost afraid, I shall not be in Glendon in time to put your wine into new casks, which should be done as soon as the temperature increases. If you however paid attention to syphons and to the sweetness of the water, I would propose to let the syphon remain, till the blossoming time and the fermentation movement is over and to draw off the wine immediately afterwards, should I not be able to return. I have seen a great part of the colony and I am now almost at its northern extremity, just ready to start for Wide Bay … …
So what became of the wine Leichhardt made? We really do not know. However, we do know that just a few years later the Scott brothers had fallen on hard times, and were declared insolvent. They were forced to live through the indignity of seeing their estate broken up and sold:- their farm, their cattle, and all their possessions. There is, in an edition of the Maitland Mercury of 1848, a long list of all the personal belongings being sold at auction. In amongst the 600 head of cattle, blacksmiths tools, and a thousand books belonging to the unfortunate Scott brothers is a one-line listing: “about 50 casks of Colonial wine, consisting of Hock, Burgundy, and ,, auterne.
Is it possible some of this wine was made by Leichhardt? And what if, by any chance, there is an old oak cask sitting in a cellar in the Hunter Valley somewhere marked “Glendon 1843”, how valuable would it be? Well, that is hard to say. But we do know that, if a wine is very rare and hard to find, and, if the winemaker has a certain ‘reputation’, it could very well be priceless.