STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 692/124

Full transcript of an interview with

DAVID MOSS

on 17 March 2003

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

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OH 692/124 DAVID MOSS

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.

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OH 692/124 TAPE 1 - SIDE A

AUSTRALIAN WINE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT.

Interview with David Moss at Mount Gambier on 17th March, 2003.

Interviewer: Rob Linn.

David, where and when were you born?

DM: Born in Adelaide, 1928.

Who were your parents, David?

DM: Ronald and Nancy Moss. Their home was Salisbury.

Oh, out at Salisbury?

DM: Yes. Father had a little citrus orchard. My mother actually came

from Mount Gambier.

Did she?

DM: Yes.

So was the citrus orchard your father’s actually living?

DM: Yes.

So how many acres did he have at Salisbury?

DM: Sixty. You know Philip Highway at all?

Yes.

DM: You know the roundabout near Holdens General Motors?

Yes, I do.

DM: That was the corner of his property. It ran from there down to the

creek, and the citrus were on the creek flats—the alluvial flats.

Oh, that would've been wonderful.

4

DM: Yes.

And David, were you educated at Salisbury?

DM: Yes. Salisbury and Urrbrae. Oh, plus a year at Adelaide High.

You would've been at Urrbrae in quite an era then, I think.

DM: Wartime.

Yes. They tell me it was a pretty good place to be around that time.

DM: Oh, yes.

Now where did you go after Urrbrae?

DM: Actually I had a year at Adelaide High after Urrbrae, then

Roseworthy. Finished there in the middle of ‘49 and came into the

Department of Agriculture.

Tell me a little bit about Roseworthy and the course out there that

you undertook.

DM: Well, it was just the general agriculture course. In those days if you

were interested in horticulture you weren't worth notice.

Is that right?

DM: That's right. And I gather from a youngish fellow around here—he

was there I suppose fifteen/twenty years ago—it was the same thing then.

In fact, they had a term for it—The Roseworthy Effect. (Laughs) If you

weren't interested in livestock, or at least broad acre cropping -

That was it.

DM: Yes.

So was horticulture always your interest?

DM: Yes, coming from an orchard.

Who were some of the people who actually taught you at

Roseworthy in those years?

5

DM: Rex Kuchel. There was Bill Bussell.

Was Jock Williams there then?

DM: Jock was there, yes. And Alan Hickinbotham.

Now, Jock went from Roseworthy to Wynns, didn't he?

He did.

DM: Now that explains—I’ve been trying to think of something there. He

used to come down here—I’m getting ahead a little—looking after Wynns at

Coonawarra.

Correct. He would've.

DM: I remember spending a day with him, walking the whole of their

vineyards there. Climbing up and down a well, for what reason I don't

know. A stinking hot day. We got back to the cellars and, ‘Oh, would you

like a drink?’ ‘Oh, would I!’ He went and he siphoned out a great glass of

red. I acquired a very smart taste for red. (Laughs)

It was that good, was it, David?

DM: It was.

Absolutely beautiful, eh?

DM: Yes.

That's not a bad memory of Jock.

DM: That was Jock Williams. I sort of had in mind that it might've been

Alan Hickinbotham, but it was Jock.

Alan went on to become, I think, the State Chemist or something

like that.

DM: That's right.

A very senior position.

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DM: Yes.

David, just on the subject of tasting your glass there at Coonawarra, had you tried wine at all in your youth?

DM: Oh, yes.

At home did you have wine?

DM: No, we didn't when we were youngsters.

Did your father drink at all?

DM: No. Not in those days.

What was the norm in your youth? Was it more fortified wines?

DM: Never has been really, as far as I’m concerned. I enjoy a fortified

wine but generally the dry reds/white.

So right from your youth you could remember that. That's most

unusual -

DM: Right from Roseworthy.

Oh, Roseworthy. That's quite unusual really.

DM: Yes. The Roseworthy standard in those days was Claret Cup. You

know, Claret and lemonade.

My word! That was a very well known drink on a hot day, wasn’t it?

DM: Yes.

So David, you said in 1949 you came into the Department of

Agriculture. What was your position and your posting?

DM: I started out as what in those days was known as a fruit inspector, all

around Adelaide. I spent most of my time in Port Adelaide doing plant

quarantine work and export work. Had a very interesting time, but not

much future. The opportunity came to come out into field work—advisory

work—so I took that about 1956.

7

And where was that posting, David?

DM: Came down here for three years, then back to the Adelaide Hills—

Southern Hills. Worked through the vineyard areas of McLaren Vale,

McLaren Flat, across to Langhorne Creek. Interesting people at Langhorne

Creek. (Laughs)

All the Potts.

DM: Yes.

Len and Diddy and -

DM: Diddy, Arty and Gaffer.

I’ll ask you about them in a while—I think.

DM: Diddy, Arty and Fiddle. Fiddle was Len’s father.

That's right.

DM: Len was the only one of the Potts that I knew that went by his correct

name. (Laughs)

They're a great mob, aren't they?

DM: Yes.

David, tell me about the first years you had down here. ‘56 to ‘59,

was it?

DM: Yes.

Were you based at the Mount?

DM: Based here in Mount Gambier. I was basically it, as far as

horticulture was concerned, down here. The district in those days, right

until they cut it all out now, went as far as Keith, Bordertown. Took in

Coonawarra, of course. In those days there was nothing at Padthaway.

Largely vegetable work, potatoes, bit of onion work and that sort of thing,

and just general whatever cropped up.

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Can you describe Coonawarra to me in the mid to late 50’s, please?

DM: There wasn't very much there. Don't hold me to the area, but I

think—I’m pretty right—it was about 400 acres there. There was, of

course, Wynns. There was Redmans, Eric Brand, and possibly one or two

others. They're the ones that I remember.

Were there ever any great issues out there that you were asked

about?

DM: Not really. They knew their area pretty well. I was a raw, young

fellow coming out. One of my recollections is, and once again I haven't

been able to remember the name of the variety, there was an outbreak of

downy mildew, which was fairly rare in those days. I raced off up to

Coonawarra into Redmans, ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ ‘What?’ (Laughs) It

had been in the press. It was one of the white varieties, quite susceptible,

in front of what they called the big cellars, which was Wynns then. That's

all it was really.

Major outbreak.

DM: The press made a big deal of it. Of course this terrible disease, I

went racing up to see what's going on.

Was it a pretty—what’s the word?—inward looking community

there at Coonawarra, in that they just got on and did what they did and the way they did it?

DM: No, I think they had a pretty broad outlook on things. There was still

fruit there at that time. Eric Brand had apricots. There were other apricot

orchards. There was a pretty neglected apple orchard. You know, things

like that around the place in those days.

I remember the apricots until well into the 60’s, I reckon.

DM: Could've been, yes. I think there was Eric and one other.

So David, you told me about Jock Williams, too. (Laughter) You

got a taste for the drop.

9

DM: Yes.

Were there ever any major problems that first time you were down

there?

DM: Not really. Nothing that comes to mind.

You said then you got shifted to the Southern Hills -

Yes.

- into the Vales. Tell me a bit about some of the characters you met down there—the people you worked with.

DM: (Laughs) Ben Chaffey.

Oh, yes. I know Ben.

DM: You know Ben? In fact, I’m off in a fortnight’s time—have you run

across Wally Boehm(?)?

No, not yet. I’m trying to get in contact with him.

DM: Well, I’ll be seeing Wally in a fortnight’s time.

Is he in Adelaide now?

DM: Yes. I guess you've run across Tom Miller.

(Tape restarted)

David, we were talking about some of the characters, and you

mentioned Ben Chaffey and then Wally Boehm who worked for Ben.

What about some of the other people down south?

DM: Well, the ones that I really remember most of all would be the

Langhorne Creek people.

Well, tell me about them. And the place.

DM: It was, of course, all flood irrigated from the Bremer in those days.

One thing I remember was that Arty Potts ran the winery there in those

days. Probably the one time I really had much to do with him was when

they had a problem with reeds through their vineyards. There was a beaut

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new herbicide that had come around in those days and I checked it out.

The weeds people thought that, oh, yes, it could work. 22DPA, it was.

(Couldn't decipher names)—all the ponds. So down I went to see Arty, and

we talked about it.

Langhorne Creek in those days was a great rifle shooting area, and I’d

been rifle shooting since the club started after the war at Roseworthy,

Salisbury and then down here. And of course, after you finished your job

with Arty you sort of got the conversation around to rifle shooting. He was

on the State committee, and I was (couldn't decipher word). He turned up

scores, and fortunately he got some respectable ones of mine. He had

records going way back. They were all great. They came down here at

one time. You know, old Fiddle got sick then and I think it was the

beginning of him going out.

What do you remember about Bleasdales, the winery down there?

What was it like when you knew it?

DM: (Laughs) It wasn't high quality. Diddy was the winemaker. If they

made a good lot of wine they'd blend that with something that wasn't so

good. (Laughs) That was their reputation in those days. But that

particular day I mentioned when we talked about the reeds, after we’d

finished he said, ‘Oh, you'd better take a bottle home to your wife’. Went

around, ‘Oh, you'd better have a bit of this, bit of that, and a bit of this’. I

went home with a cartload. (Laughter)

Hopefully it was acceptable.

DM: Well, we wouldn't have known the difference in those days. (Laughs)

So your contact across the industry must've been really quite broad, David, that you advised on herbicides. Was it on the vine

types and things as well?

DM: Yes. Again sort of jumping ahead of things, down here in Colin Kidd’s

day, Colin Kidd was President of the Viticultural Council at Coonawarra, we

did quite a bit of selection work, looking for good clones of various things.

Whether they're still going, I don't know.

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How did you go about that? I know this is jumping ahead, but I

think it's important to talk about it, David. How did you go about the selection?

DM: About this time of year, perhaps a wee bit earlier but just before

harvest, a group of us would get together and we’d just walk the rows.

When we came to what we thought was a good vine, we’d mark it.

What with?

DM: Probably a tape. You know, coloured tape. After that was done a few

of us would go back and cull them down again until we got down to

perhaps half a dozen or something like that that we reckoned were fairly

good. Then they went into, if my memory serves me right, the State vine

improvement set up.

So this would be a Cabernet?

DM: In those days it would've been Cabernet, and probably Shiraz.

So what would you be looking for?

DM: Oh, good yield, good looking vine. You know, good even type. And

then, as I said, went into the vine improvement scheme where they were

planted out as trials. You know, went back later and took cuttings from the

particular vines. They were given a number.

So you'd do this over a number of years in other words.

DM: I think probably a few years. Not a vast number. They couldn't

handle a vast lot in the scheme.

That's interesting. It's almost sort of like a clinical trial, in a sense.

DM: Yes.

And David, was there any of that sort of work done down in the

Southern Vales?

DM: Probably was, but that was after my time.

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(Tape restarted)

David, you said that was after your time in the Southern Vales.

DM: I would've been down here, and whoever was in the Southern Vales

at that time would've been -

In charge of that.

DM: Well, it was basically an industry. As I said, Colin was Chairman of

the Coonawarra Viticultural Council, and they would've probably had a

similar group in the Southern Vales doing the same thing.

Yes, they did actually. I think it was Alec Baxendale there at one

stage.

DM: Yes.

I think it was, anyway.

DM: Yes, I remember Alec.

So David, what brought you back down to the South East of South Australia?

DM: I’ve always liked the South East. I don't like hot weather. As I said,

my mother came from here. My grandparents—I’ve got relations around

the place and I was quite happy to come back.

So what year would that have been?

DM: ‘66 or ‘67. Have you heard Dave Kilpatrick mentioned?

Yes, I have.

DM: Dave, of course, has gone now. He was senior advisor in those days.

And Greg Botting.

Yes, I’ve heard of him.

DM: Greg was down here. He was down here the seven years that I was

in the hills.

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And tell me, David, when you arrived back, did you notice a

difference with the number of plantings at Coonawarra?

DM: It was just starting. Mildara was here. Friend Edwards. Edwards

and Chaffey—Seaview. Friend was here at that time.

I didn't know he'd come down here. He was originally in Marion I think, wasn't he?

DM: Could well have been. He was here. That's jogging my memory.

Ben told me he was, so that's how I know that he was.

DM: Here?

No, that he came originally from Marion.

DM: Probably, yes. But what I’m thinking about is that I knew Ben down

here, so he must've been here in the 1950’s. They must've come down in

those days. When I went to the hills, Edwards and Chaffey—well, I was

familiar with the Edwards side of it.

Oh, okay.

DM: They must've been. When I came back down here things were

starting to grow a bit but, by and large, there wasn't a vast lot at

Coonawarra. Seppelts had had a bit of a look at Padthaway. There was

just a bit of stirring going on then.

Actually my job looked very shaky for a while. There wasn't very much

here. I went and did a two year forestry course at TAFE in case I had to

bail out, but by the time I came to the end of the two years I hardly had

time to think about it. The viticultural side had grown and other things I

was involved with were all growing.

That makes sense because you said Mildara were in. Then I think

Lindemans came in, didn't they?

DM: Lindemans bought Redmans.

And that was ‘69, was it? No. Earlier than that.

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DM: It was still Redmans when I came back, I think. I think.

I’ve got that date somewhere. I was just speaking to Don Redman

last week about that. But did you notice in those very few years

after you came back, a very quick growth there, did you?

DM: Yes. It wasn't all that quick for a start but then it really got going.

Mildara was sort of the first to really get going. Bob Hollick, have you -

Yes.

DM: Bob’s still going I believe.

Is that Ian’s father?

DM: Uncle. I think he's still up at Merbein. I think he's still going. He

was last I heard. He'd be a fair age. He was an old villain—Bob.

(Laughter) Again this probably shouldn't go on tape but—it's jumping

ahead a bit again.

Do you want me to turn this off?

DM: You can please yourself. I’ll leave it to you.

When new varieties started coming around—you'd be aware of the

quarantine situation with South Australia as far as -

Yes. Could I talk to you about that after we've heard the story? Because I’d like to know more about that, please.

DM: Yes. Anyhow, the white variety that really -

Chardonnay.

DM: Chardonnay, yes. Chardonnay was just coming. They'd brought it

into the State under a very careful quarantine set up. They increased it a

bit and they allotted a bit of planting material out to various companies. All

of a sudden Mildara had quite an area planted. I know that they weren't

good enough propagators to have propagated all that material. (Laughs)

We used to go up and wander around the block from time to time, you

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know, just to let them know that we knew. But we could never prove what

had happened.

Could you talk about the nature of the quarantine and how new

varieties were brought in, David, because that's very important.

DM: I think Wally Boehm might know more about that than I do. The

Phylloxera Board had a lot to do with this side of it.

Exactly.

DM: Their sources, I don't know, but probably departments in other states

would have virus free stuff, and of course very carefully looked at as far as

phylloxera was concerned. Phylloxera has been the number one concern

for well over a hundred years. Again just jumping around a bit, but are

you aware that at one time there was a planting of a number of various

phylloxera resistant rootstocks on Kangaroo Island?

No, I was not.

DM: That was part of my district when I was in the hills, but I never ever

got over there. They used to send someone down to prune them every

year. They maintained this in case phylloxera got into the State.

This would be—what?—the late 50’s/early 60’s.

DM: That would be in the late 50’s/early 60’s.

I’ve never heard of that, Dave.

DM: Actually we were on Kangaroo Island two or three years ago and I

looked around but I couldn't find anything. Probably didn't ask the right

people.

TAPE 1 - SIDE B

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David, you were telling a very interesting story about the phylloxera resistant rootstocks on Kangaroo Island. And I’m just

thinking too, and I guess everybody believed, that phylloxera could

just decimate this State’s vineyards, couldn't it? That's how it was seen.

DM: It's generally considered that of all the South Australian areas

probably Coonawarra is the most vulnerable. What I know of phylloxera, it

prefers heavier soils. It doesn't like sandy soils. While it would still, of

course, be a concern, it would be perhaps less of a concern, say, in the

river areas than here. And of course we’re so close to the Victorian

phylloxera areas, but we've managed to keep it out for well over a hundred

years now.

Done a good job, David.

DM: (Laughs) It’s, I suppose to a certain extent, luck, because obviously

things happened like that bit I mentioned about Mildara and Chardonnay.

You know, it's not here as far as anyone knows.

A bit earlier you mentioned Colin Kidd’s name in regard to

Coonawarra. I think Colin came down with the Lindemans expansion, didn't he?

DM: Yes. Colin’s brother is Ray Kidd, and of course he was very much

involved with Lindemans. Colin had a citrus orchard at—where the big dam

was to go, just above Renmark.

Chowilla.

DM: Yes. They took his orchard for Chowilla and, of course, Ray organised

him to come down here. As I have said, he was a very good manager, a

very good person for the industry in all ways.

And Lindemans would've been one of the larger expansions down

here, wouldn't it?

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DM: Yes. They bought up various bits of land around the place, and

planted up vineyards. They've got them dotted around the various parts.

One of them, Limestone Ridge, was just that, a limestone ridge. They put

rippers into it. That's standard procedure around here, rip the country

before they plant them. It was an absolute moonscape. Just stone. They

carted countless hundreds of tons of stones off that block. Bill Redman

was still alive in those days, and of course he was the patriarch. Bill said,

‘That’ll be one of the best vineyards in the district’. (Laughs)

He would've been right, too.

DM: Yes.

What was Bill Redman like?

DM: I haven't got great recollections of him but he was a great old fellow.

Actually that comment gave me some comfort. You’d have run across

Kidmans—Kidman winery?

Yes.

DM: Ken Kidman was a grazier. The property is still largely grazing.

Ken’s still going. He thought he ought to plant some vines. They're at the

north end of Coonawarra. So he rang me up, ‘Want you to have a look at a

bit of land’. So up I went and we went out, and it was just a limestone

ridge. All he asked me was, ‘Is it terra rossa?’ And I had to say, ‘Yes’. But

there was about that much of it. You know, little pockets in the hollows in

the limestone. I remember thinking, is he going to ask me will it grow

vines? (Laughs) But he didn't. All he wanted to know was, is it terra

rossa?

What years would this have been in, Dave?

DM: That would've been probably the late 60’s.

Why would he ask that question?

DM: Terra rossa. Coonawarra.

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Was it always seen as the red soil?

DM: Yes. But that was all he wanted. He wanted to start one of these—I

think—group vineyard things.

Syndicate.

DM: Yes. And he wanted to be able to say it was on the Coonawarra terra

rossa.

But there were parts of Coonawarra that definitely weren't terra rossa, weren’t there?

DM: Oh, yes. And are now. The western side is black (sounds like,

ground water ren-zeen-a). I wonder what happens if we get a run of wet

years.

Good point. Gets very wet.

DM: And of course the eastern side is sand. But they've expanded way

out onto the (ren-zeen-a). The difference in the soils—you know, they're

both limestone. I was always told that terra rossa was limestone that was

degraded into soil under well drained conditions. (Ground water ren-zeen-

a) was limestone that was under water logged conditions. (Laughs) So, as

I said, if we ever get wet years again, there could be some sad people on

the western side.

So from the moment that you first arrived down here you were

aware of people liking that terra rossa, were you?

DM: Well, it was all terra rossa in those days. You would've picked this up

elsewhere from books like this. It went back to the Riddoch days.

So David, you mentioned Colin Kidd and his contribution, which was

obviously very large. Were there other people in that era, too, who viticulturally really helped the area?

DM: Oh, yes. Vic Patrick.

Oh, yes. From Blass.

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DM: Yes.

He was Mildara, wasn't he, in those days?

DM: Once again, it's probably not - (Laughs) I’ll leave it to your

judgement. When I first knew Vic he was Wynns.

Oh, yes.

DM: And he and Colin were very, very friendly. They spent a lot of time

together. When Colin was treated as he was, I think one of the main

reasons that Vic left Wynns and went to Mildara was that he didn't like

Southcorp. (Laughs) You know, they were that close.

In those days I used to have groups of people turn up down here, looking

to have a look at Coonawarra.

This is government people?

DM: Well, government people, and I remember a bureau group from the

Barossa wanting to have a look. When that happened I’d just ring Colin, as

Chairman of the Viticultural Council, and up we’d go. Either Colin or Vic

would hop on. They all knew as much about everyone else’s vineyard as

their own. There was no worry—you know, the bus would just drive

through anyone’s vineyard. Might be Colin on and they'd go through

Wynns and all the rest of it. There was none of, you know, you can't see

what we’re doing. It was just open to everyone. It was a terrific feeling.

So Colin and Vic in other words were sharing ideas.

DM: Yes, the whole time.

Oh, it's fantastic.

DM: And others. I don't recall others. Later, of course, Doug Balnaves

came in. He was a much later acquisition to the industry from the grazing

side of things. That and various other things, after my experiences at

Roseworthy, gave me a lot of satisfaction.

20

Yes, it would've, I’m sure. (Laughter)

DM: People coming from grazing.

That's one of the things I was going to ask you, David. You must've noticed some really large changes in

agriculture/horticulture/viticulture in your life in the industry.

Was that one of the biggest? That there was a recognition that this was really worthwhile?

DM: Oh, yes. Horticulture now is well up. Horticulture in general,

including viticulture, is well up with the other industries which, as I said,

gives me a lot of satisfaction. (Laughs)

What were some of the other changes that you might've noticed

around the Coonawarra area?

DM: Well, of course, probably the major one would've been the change

from all hand work to mechanisation. First of all the mechanical pruning,

and then later mechanical harvesting. In fact, Coonawarra could never

have existed if it wasn't for those things. They'd never have been able to

get enough labour to cope with the area. It just would never have been

available.

Again perhaps digressing a little bit, it was during my time in the Southern

Hills, we used to have to judge pruning competitions—(Laughs)—which we

didn't think a great deal of.

I recall one time—I think Wally might've been involved in this—we were at

Watervale and John Gurzansky -

I haven't heard of him.

DM: John was advisor in the Barossa. He left the department and went to

a vineyard in the Hunter Valley, and last I heard of him he was around

Mildura somewhere.

But John and I—I think it was John and I—were judging the spur pruned

vines. Wally and Harry Tulloch—I think it was those two—were judging the

rod and spur pruned. John and I did it as a visual assessment, and of

21

course we got through our job very quickly. Wally and Harry were literally,

with a Texta colour, marking every cut on the vines. So John and I went

and followed them up and judged theirs—the rod and spur—under our

system, and came up with exactly the same answer as they did with all

their detail. (Laughs) But what I was leading to was how vine pruning in

those days was such an art, and yet nowadays saws do the job.

Yes. Wasn't it a fact that in different regions people had different

ideas of how things were to be pruned?

DM: Oh, yes.

And wouldn't budge from it.

DM: No.

Going back to Langhorne Creek and the Potts, they had a vineyard—and

again my memory of names of people, or whatever, just won't come. I

know the variety as well as anything. But they had found with this

particular variety, which under the normal old way of hard pruning,

produced little bunches and not a great deal of them. They'd virtually

come to a mechanical pruning type of thing. The vines finished up much

like that, and they found they got larger bunches and more of them.

Was it a white variety?

DM: Yes.

Verdelho?

DM: Yes.

That rings true.

DM: Have you run across Len Potts?

Oh, yes.

DM: You've talked to him?

I have.

22

DM: Oh, a great fellow.

I know a lot about the Coorong and fishing. (Laughter) Len’s become a friend.

DM: He still lives right alongside the -

Yes.

DM: He was trying to sell the place. We go past there occasionally.

I think he's still there.

DM: It would be a difficult place to sell.

That always has amused me. You know, how it was such an art, yet

nowadays mechanical pruning is the thing. Okay, they've got to clean

them up a bit occasionally.

That was a huge advance.

DM: A huge advance. And by and large, you would say that Coonawarra—

the people—were much more advanced than, say, the Barossa and areas

like that. They were much more receptive to these advanced techniques.

And I notice that in, say, the late 60’s/early 70’s there were

pastoral families. You mentioned the Kidmans. I think Rymills would've been another.

DM: Rymills were another one getting wildly enthusiastic about vines and

so forth, who I always think of when I think of the satisfaction I get.

(Laughs) Kidmans and Rymills.

Was it a surprise in a way to you that this was -

DM: Not really. You're thinking of Peter Rymill?

Yes, I am.

DM: My first introduction to Rymills was Peter’s wife, whose name escapes

me.

Judy.

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DM: That's right.

She rang me. They wanted to plant some vines. They wanted to just plant

a small area of vines so that they could grow enough grapes to make

enough wine so they could have a bottle a day for their meal. So I went

and had a look and, yes, it was a good patch of soil. They planted their red

grapes, and the same patch is still under vines but they’ve ripped them out

and have replanted since. That was their beginning in vines.

A cousin of theirs planted—her husband was a solicitor in Sydney or(?)

Melbourne (they were grazing people) and they sold the property to

someone else for grazing, but she thought that the end of it might be

suitable for vines. So I had to rush up in a great hurry because her

husband had said, ‘Well, okay. The property’s been sold but if you want to

keep that bit you can, but we've got to make up our minds in a day or two’.

So I went up and, sure, it was fine. Now who’s got it now, I wouldn't

know. Have you run across the Joanna(?) people?

Oh, yes, the Hundred of Joanna.

DM: Hundred of(?) Joanna. Well, there's vines there. This was south on

that same road, right on the southern end there. Who’s got it now, I don't

know.

So there's this intense interest going on, David that was unlike

anything you'd probably experienced before.

DM: Yes. And Padthaway, of course, came in.

And so you dealt with that as well?

DM: Oh, yes.

That's gone very much the same way, hasn’t it?

DM: Yes. Of course Lindemans were there. Keith Hubbard was there.

Keith was a very good fellow. Died on the job. Great loss to the area.

Kingsley Ziegler. Kingsley could still be there. He was Seppelts.

Ziegler. Old Barossa name.

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DM: Yes. Again, I know him as well as anything. Name will come to me

in a minute. He was a grazing fellow and planted vines down this Keppoch

end, in behind the Keppoch hall.

I saw them today again. Yes, I can't recall.

DM: I’m glad I’m not the only one.

David, with all the advances that were happening, were there

situations around Padthaway and Coonawarra where things could go wrong and there'd be real problems that you had to come out

and solve?

DM: Not a lot. I very much found with people like Colin Kidd, Vic Patrick

and the general run, they were way in front of me. You know, how could

someone who sort of spent perhaps a day or half a day a week on vines

keep up with people who lived with them? They had the history. I came to

the conclusion towards the end that we could probably be most use to

them as a back-up for perhaps laboratory work, research work and that

sort of thing. They were way ahead of anyone in the department—they

and the area in general

That would've been quite a change from your earlier years, wouldn't it?

DM: Oh, yes.

So this new generation of people like Colin Kidd and Vic Patrick, if

you like, showed just quite a different view.

DM: Yes. The industry has been very lucky to have people like that

around. They're in other areas, too, of course. Course, other areas have

caught up, or have headed towards catching up.

And David, did you see differences in things like trellising as well?

DM: Yes. That always has been a big part of the industry—various

trellising methods. I’ve been retired for fifteen years so I don't know what

their thoughts are these days.

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What I was thinking was, you mentioned mechanical harvesting

and pruning, I guess you had to provide trellising to suit that.

DM: That's right. They had to have the appropriate trellises for the

mechanisation of the industry, and you could say that limits the choices.

So David, over the many years that you have been involved in the industry, what have been the things that have really gratified you

most?

DM: The industry coming into its own. And as we've said several times,

the people that have come into it. People like the Rymills, Kidmans and

many others. They've all brought the industry along to where it is now.