31 December 2015
HOW TO BREAK IN A SHACK
Triffic night breaking in a new/old Wordley beach shack: first feast at Anne-Marie and Milton's place on The Scrub: Mick Wordley, Anne-Marie Shin, Milton Wordley, Robyn Chalklen, Robyn Wordley and Chris Parkinson ... nine fine matured Rieslings with dinner ... co-organiser Warts and Playford had done a runner by this mature stage of the evening ... twas grand to see them Yearlings! ... photo Philip White
27 December 2015
MR GRANEY COMES BACK TO TOWN
I see the strangest things in Penaluna Place, whether I'm there intentionally or sucked in by the gravity lens that surrounds the Metropolitan pub.
Last night I was led by a deep yearning for a Masterclass in Cool, as best supplied by Dave Graney and the MistLY - PUSH TO PLAY. I climbed on my heels and went forth:
If one watches long enough, someone will come through a door ... in this case percussionist/drummer/keyboard-playing/songwriter/spouse/chanteuse Clare Moore ... Clare's from a line of Adelaide city publicans ... landlords whose dead-reliable rubbing strakes these knees of mine have nudged ... Juka Lester, anybody? Traitor's Gate?
... while David - I prefer to call him David - comes from Mount Gambier, a remote South Australian timber town which built its hospital inside the caldera of a dormant volcano
two attentive young folk watch the band ... the music was like great aged muscat ... with a spritz of Steely Dan at their most pretzel lyrical and maybe some Boz Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered ... even Nancy Wilson/Tom Jobim dammit ... but it wasn't them it was them ... true cool and deadly ... brilliant original music
The Metropolitan Hotel was one of the first beautiful bluestone piles in Adelaide city to be properly fixed up ... my neighbour Colin Bond bought it and painstakingly put back its Victorian public house properness around 1980 ... the powers that were took instant dislike to the bright original colours he restored once he'd uncovered them after chipping a century of paint away ... long since, The Metro's exterior's been dulled back by some mob of faceless style police ... she's still perfect of heart, however ... a serious old Adelaide thirst emporium
all the photographs above by Philip White
lyric by Dave Graney [Night of the Wolverines]
heart of Mount Gambier image below must be by God
Last night I was led by a deep yearning for a Masterclass in Cool, as best supplied by Dave Graney and the MistLY - PUSH TO PLAY. I climbed on my heels and went forth:
If one watches long enough, someone will come through a door ... in this case percussionist/drummer/keyboard-playing/songwriter/spouse/chanteuse Clare Moore ... Clare's from a line of Adelaide city publicans ... landlords whose dead-reliable rubbing strakes these knees of mine have nudged ... Juka Lester, anybody? Traitor's Gate?
... while David - I prefer to call him David - comes from Mount Gambier, a remote South Australian timber town which built its hospital inside the caldera of a dormant volcano
to be at the centre
to be at the scene
to be seen to care to be seen
to have a drink in your hand
to know the score
to flick the blood from your lapel
and yawn
to be at the scene
to be seen to care to be seen
to have a drink in your hand
to know the score
to flick the blood from your lapel
and yawn
two attentive young folk watch the band ... the music was like great aged muscat ... with a spritz of Steely Dan at their most pretzel lyrical and maybe some Boz Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered ... even Nancy Wilson/Tom Jobim dammit ... but it wasn't them it was them ... true cool and deadly ... brilliant original music
The Metropolitan Hotel was one of the first beautiful bluestone piles in Adelaide city to be properly fixed up ... my neighbour Colin Bond bought it and painstakingly put back its Victorian public house properness around 1980 ... the powers that were took instant dislike to the bright original colours he restored once he'd uncovered them after chipping a century of paint away ... long since, The Metro's exterior's been dulled back by some mob of faceless style police ... she's still perfect of heart, however ... a serious old Adelaide thirst emporium
all the photographs above by Philip White
lyric by Dave Graney [Night of the Wolverines]
heart of Mount Gambier image below must be by God
24 December 2015
TWO FLESHY ITALIANS FROM THE VALES

They have also played a big role in the life and style of McLaren Vale, always adding a touch of Latin passion to the aloof cool brought by the Brits.
With that in mind, take a look at this Serafino Bellissimo Fiano 2015 ($20; 13% alcohol; screw cap): Fiano is beginning to slot into the local gastronomic vista a bit like a white Grenache. Like Grenache, it's pretty and poised at lower alcohols, but quickly turns to porty gloop if let ripen too far. This model displays the fleshy face cream aroma typical of the riper sorts, and follows that with just the right amount of comfort in the saddle. Importantly, though, its resilient bones are never lost in its corpulence: while it flashes the flesh it retains just enough poise and dignity to bring refreshing lemony balance to the table. It can handle a serious chill, even chilli, and draws my hunger in the direction of chicken casserole with plenty of garlic and fresh herb, or a spaghetti vongole with fresh-picked Italian parsley. It's a good thing.
Sophie Otton, Charlie Whish and the author ran the International Grenache Day masterclass at Serafino ... this went really well ... photo by Milton Wordley; photo below (Otto, White and Whish about to flee) by Rusty Gallagher

On the other hand, the notion of making rosé from the black Aglianico seems in this case to flood the same room with colour and light: the J. Petrucci & Son Sabella Aglianico 2015 ($25; 12% alcohol; screw cap) is one of those fleshy pinks that paints smiles all over everyone. It smells like those cured hams hanging in the window, but served with a quivering maraschino cherry jelly. Once again we have a wine richly endowed with puppy fat, but never so much as to hide its racy bony frame: beneath that chub and pickled cherry there's an acidity as stiff and crunchy as bone china. You can have this on ice with a splash of soda with your breakfast panettone, or, dammit, chilled with that sugar-cured Christmas ham and crunchy white bread from the brilliant McLaren Flat bakery. La vita è bella!
J. Petrucci & Son: Joe and Michael at Sabella ... photo Philip White
GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER
We dragged Mick Wordley out of the studio for an afternoon of veranda music yesterday. Mick's been trapped in there for a very busy year. Folks love recording at Mixmasters. Joe Manning came down off his riverboat and we got the corkscrew cracklin' and some serious old timber hummin ,,. photo Philip White
I'm lucky to have been absorbed by the Wordley family since my own tribe has died or dispersed across this big old country..
This is a favourite image of my adoptive mob: three of the four siblings: Milton, Dixie and Mick. At T-Chow, of course ... photo Philip White
And here's Mick rockin' his goldie with the Large Number Twelves and Charlie Owen ... in his living room.

this photo by GiGi
I'm lucky to have been absorbed by the Wordley family since my own tribe has died or dispersed across this big old country..
This is a favourite image of my adoptive mob: three of the four siblings: Milton, Dixie and Mick. At T-Chow, of course ... photo Philip White
And here's Mick rockin' his goldie with the Large Number Twelves and Charlie Owen ... in his living room.
this photo by Leo Davis; these below below by Philip White
Mick with Australia's rockinest r&b trio: The Donkeys, who manage to reform whenever Karski's coming through town: Jeff Algra drums, Les Karski guitar

23 December 2015
2015: A JAUNDICED REFLECTION
Last message from the depot:
a year not had very well by the not very well but killed by others
by PHILIP WHITE
Now that was a year. My
hermit life became very challenging after braining myself on a low veranda
whilst moving house last Christmas; an injury which rekindled the damage of
many other head wounds from my reckless past.
So my written output has
been a tad erratic. At times it's been tricky to perform and now I look back on
the twelvemonth through the blurred and bent eye of a bloke living in fear of
becoming a very shitty old prick.
Apart from the odd notable
outing, retweeting other people's bad news seemed about as good as I could do
most of the days I could crawl out of bed.
There were too many
funerals. One miserable morning I removed thirteen names and numbers from my
phone. That was enough; I drew the line at that. There are more dead ones in
there. Drinking the wines of the dead is little delight when their departure is
still raw. The cheapest comfort comes from imagining how much worse it must be
in Syria, and the Yemen - you know the long terrible list of hell holes - and that's no comfort at all. The world is in ruin; our politicians'
treachery easily oozes through their silly thin shine.
There was no writing for
pleasure this year. For the first time in my life poetry seemed impossible.
I tell you this in
warning: my recollections of what is normally pleasurable are jaundiced.
Nothing much changed in the
big volume end of the wine industry. The Aussie dollar fell, making export easier,
but if the likes of Kingston Estate boss Bill Moularadelis are any guide,
electricity price hikes he blames on solar and wind power would appear to have
cancelled that relief. His Riverland refinery processes five per cent of
Australia's wine. He exports it in bulk, obviously at the thinnest margin.
Maybe he wants a nuclear reactor across the river, like they have in Bordeaux.
It doesn't take too many
outbursts like Moularadelis's effort in TheFinancial Review last week to show this belatedly greening world how lost
many big Oz wineries are beginning to look.
As this El Niñio
progresses, and the drought of five and six years ago repeats, perhaps even
more viciously, the irrigated wine business of the Murray Darling is sure to face
horrid prospects indeed.
As I reported here in September, when Winemakers Federation of Australia Chief Executive Paul Evans reported a 5%
increase in grape prices, he added "This is an industry average and many
producers in the warm inland regions in particular continue to experience
enormous challenges. Our analysis shows that 92% of production in warm inland
areas is unprofitable."
That came as no surprise
to those few of us who keep our noses to the winestone. What did surprise and
reassure was the number that then emerged from the top end of the market.
Wine Australia's Export Report September 2015 outlined the
strongest rate of growth since the peak of October 2007. That was the last time
the Aussie dollar was worth zilch.
In the 12 months to September 30 this year, the value of exports rose 8
per cent to A$1.96
billion. This wasn't the work of the giant bladder pack business. Uh-huh. A lot
of that export bulk came from wine grown at a loss by those Murray Valley
irrigating families who've not made a cent for years. But wine above A$50/litre
rose 54 per cent to a record A$133 million. This is only 0.2 per cent of total
exports by volume, but the report shows it's worth 7 per cent of total value.
In October, Wine Australia Chief Executive Officer Andreas Clark
said "We’re seeing the strongest rates of growth in our premium price
segments. Wines above A$10 per litre grew in value 28 per cent to A$426
million, a record for this segment. Wines in the A$20-$50 segment increased 13
per cent to A$88 million."
Enough said
about that. The industrial revolution in much Australian wine seems to have
failed.
While it did
that, a predictable counter-revolution pre-occupied me for a brief moment. This
was the advent of brown and orange hippy wines that called themselves natural. It
was a tiny volume which gained a totally disproportionate degree of attention
from the hipster sommeliers and those
writers who aim at that millenial audience. The fad of such wines, those
with a shelf life briefer than unpasteurised milk, is mercifully waning.
Smarter
premium grower/producers, however, are certainly learning to make much better,
cleaner, more environmentally sound wines in larger volumes, which last as well
as the most preservative-soused premiums of yore. That's very cool.
While I quote
those reports of the country's two biggest wine industry representative and
administrative councils, I should also report that their continuing failure to
grasp the realities of the gap between the premium, profitable end of the
business and the vast volume-pumping, loss-making, environmentally-destructive
bottom end has never looked so indictable.
While these
two, and other bodies, are currently attempting to merge into one supergroup,
they continue to miss the point: there are two wine industries in Australia.
One is premium and profitable, the other is bulk and simply not. While the
biggest investment is in the latter bit, those practitioners need more and more
to depend on the pointier, sharper, more respected and profitable end to give
them camouflage in the export markets and to a lesser extent, within Australia.
While these
two ends of the business masquerade as one, their propaganda and lobbying
efforts are far too easily ignored by significant politicians. I know various
key pollies of both sides of the houses at both state and federal levels who
quietly say they can't afford to take too much notice of wine industry councils.
Which leads
me to those who write about wine and its manufacturers. In the major
newspapers, the most reliable industry commentaries appear in the better business
pages, even when written by folks who are not wine industry specialists.
As their
space continues to diminish, the wine recommenders in the food and wine pages
become more and more slavish to the wine producers, and less likely to ever
publish anything that gets close to honest criticism.
Like the
stuttering repetition of the out-of-date wine show system, their relevance
seems to fade as surely as the wine industry councils they consistently fail to
analyse and report.
The fractal
chaos of the blogosphere is not much better. Waves of would-be could-bees
quickly subside into forgotten coulda-beens as they realise there's no money in
it unless they get into financial bed with those they hope will keep them
supplied with free booze forever.
So there. A
jaundiced view from a jaundiced hack. There's no pleasure in writing this.
But I
happily stand by the reviews of the many delicious tinctures I have recommended
here throughout the year. Many of them retail for not much more than the cost
of three or four pints of beer.
I look
forward to having a couple of weeks away from the keyboard while I replace the
tasting bench with the accubation table, and continue to get my ratty brain
back into line.
Be very
careful in the heat and the celebrations. Never drive if you drink. Don't
forget the water. Don't waste money on presents nobody wants - send the money
to the poor bloody refugees that somehow manage to stay afloat as they flee Armageddon.
I'll leave
you with a better summary than I've managed here. It's musical and poetic and
perfect and it fits my attitude to all the above and reflects my respect of
you, dear reader: it's Guy Clarke and Karen Matheson singing Guy's Dublin Blues. Pour yourself a big one, roll up a racehorse special
and find it here on Youtube.
In the meantime, have a
very merry thing. See you on the other side.
Ka-chink!
Ka-chink!
22 December 2015
YIU LAI SHUK FANGIN AT THE TONNE
If you have any wishing energy units left, hurl 'em Grandma's way.
Those Adelaiders lucky enough to recall dining in the original T-Chow on the corner of Market Street 25 years ago will remember Dora and Gigi, Grandma's daughter and grand-daughter, who ran the show with Chef So and Chef Singlet No. 2.
When they brought their regional Chinese cuisine to Adelaide, these wonderful people blew our minds delivering brilliant fresh food true to their teochew 潮州菜 roots at deliciously low prices.
These folks changed Adelaide's attitude to gastronomy.
After a few years of only average food, the big T-Chow in Moonta Street Chinatown is back in its straps and fangin' in the top tucker division.
Raise a goodly glass to Grandma.
I'm shivering keen to have my knees under the table at her hundredth. She rocks.
Vibe her on, good brethren.
Gigi took that photo of her partner Chis Sykes, master chocolatier, with Lai Shuk and the author.
'Twas a good night well-had by experts. More please.
POSTSCRIPT: It worked! Lai Shuk is now home and happy for Exmess, and wondering what the hell happened.
18 December 2015
MORE EXMESS REFRESHMENTS
Twenty-five years ago Stefano Lubiana triggered a considerable rift in his tribe when he suggested to his father that the vineyards they'd slaved away establishing in South Australia's Riverland were not exactly in the best place to produce wines of finesse. He sold up and moved to the banks of the Derwent in south-eastern Tasmania, and set about building that fair isle's first and only certified biodynamic vineyard.
Stefano makes three brilliant sparklers. The Stefano
Lubiana NV Brut ($34; 12.5% alcohol) is a Chardonnay (60%) Pinot noir blend of
two and three year old reserve wines kept on lees for two years. The wine has
an alluring honey richness which never seems to interfere with its delightful
capacity to satisfy and refresh: while you may not, the wine remains elegant
and refined to the end of the bottle.
That end, I warn you, is far from dead, but comes rather
quickly, even if you're flying solo.
Go ten bucks up the ladder and you're in the pink: the
Brut Rosé 2010 ($45; 12.5% alcohol) is 100% Pinot released after four years on
lees and ten months on cork. It has that lovely fleshy character that reminds
me of the best smoked salmon from those parts, and makes the perfect
accompaniment to that fine fish on toasted rye with chèvre and capers; maybe a
sprig of fennel. I don't know of any French pink for less than twice this price
of a similar supreme quality.
But it's when you stretch another tenner from the wallet
that you really see stars. The Grande Vintage 2007 ($55; 12.5% alcohol) is
another 60-40 Chardonnay/Pinot, but it's had seven years on lees and ten months
on cork. What I see as elegant honey in the NV here becomes a dreamy cinder
toffee, like the heart of the old Violet Crumble. To add edge and focus,
there's a whiff of ironstone soil like you'll smell in that drought-prone
vineyard on a hot summer's day.
But forget the sniffing: it's not really going to make
much difference until you tip it into yourself, which is a very easy thing to
do. Scrumptious stuff! Unless you're really driving high into the sparkling
wines of that part of France they call Champagne, like Krug realms, this
bargain beauty is guaranteed to make you feel very happy about sticking to Australia.
While you're at it, give your glasses a chink to the pluck of Stefano, a man
with a true gastronomic vision.
While this vicious heat riles on, however, the full
bottle of fizz is not always the most sensible hydration vehicle. If you prefer
the right to manage the strength of your holy water at this sacred time, the
smart folks at Bickfords have just the tincture. While regular readers will
know of my affection for the efficacious nature of ginger, this product makes
me think somebody at Bickfords has been reading me too. It's called Honey Lemon
Ginger Cordial, and if you slosh it in a tumbler of Absolut with soda and ice,
a slice of lemon and a shaving of fresh Zingiber officinale root, I'm sure
you'll feel properly blessed in a casual sort of way.
Now for some real torture. Forget the Exmess pudding. You
can drink it. It's called Chambers Rosewood Vineyards Rutherglen Rare Muscat
($350-$400 for .375 ml., 18% alcohol; screw cap). It'll change your brain
forever. It's prickly to sniff: spicy and packed with all that rich fruit mince
and suet and whatnot that grannie would pack in her steamy pud. It's
dangerously fluffy of texture, never cloying, and its impossibly dense royal
fruit is balanced perfectly by staunch natural acidity.
From a solera commenced by the Chambers family in the
1890s, this is quite simply a mouthful of the history of Australian winemaking.
It'll make you go all runny in the middle. Exquisite!
Bill Chambers can be my Father Christmas anyday ... photo from the Rutherglen website
17 December 2015
A MESSAGE IN THE SKIES
In blistering heatwaves like the record belting South Australia's enduring, I like to gaze into this favourite photograph, taken by the Melbourne-based ocean-racing sailor and photographer, Annie S. Boutrieng.
Yesterday was the beginning of a frying record hot spell ... senior Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Matt Collopy reports that such a four-day blitz of temperatures above 40C “has never happened in December since records began in 1887”.
On a brief venture forth into the dazzle and fry, I just bumped into Michael Lane, the vineyard and farm manager of the Yangarra vineyards that surround me ... I don't know how blokes like him can handle watching his hundreds of acres of precious babies endure conditions like this.
"Just gotta keep doing the best we can do," he said, with textbook stoicism.
Map courtesy of the Bureau of Meteorology Australia
Yesterday was the beginning of a frying record hot spell ... senior Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Matt Collopy reports that such a four-day blitz of temperatures above 40C “has never happened in December since records began in 1887”.
On a brief venture forth into the dazzle and fry, I just bumped into Michael Lane, the vineyard and farm manager of the Yangarra vineyards that surround me ... I don't know how blokes like him can handle watching his hundreds of acres of precious babies endure conditions like this.
"Just gotta keep doing the best we can do," he said, with textbook stoicism.
Map courtesy of the Bureau of Meteorology Australia
BARGAINS FOR JESUS' BIRTHDAY
Longhop Adelaide
Hills Pinot Gris 2015
$18; screw cap; 13%
alcohol
Just feast your eyes on them weenie little alcohols. Then
get cross-eyed over the price. That must embarrass and annoy many more
pretentious practitioners of the gris arts. Always up the top end of my bottom
spend sector, the wines of Dominic Torzi, Tracy Matthews and Tim Freeland come
in three brands and it's a sweet thing that these Longhop ones have lobbed in
time for the birthday of Our Lord.
I'm sure that had he actually been a real
living walking dude, the Nazarene would've fit tight the scriptural account
which warned "The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say,
Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."
If I just happened to be gluttonising with publicans and sinners I'm
certain they'd love these wines, even before they saw the price. If the Son of
God then walked in off the dusty track I'd pour him a jug of this baby straight
away. He'd love this stuff.
Grown up on the ridge at Lenswood, it's a calmly-perfumed,
confidence-stroking beauty. I tortured it with a deep chill and it seemed the
perfect bushfire drink. Like your last one. Avoid that extreme and give it only
ten or twenty minutes in the icebucket and it's so smooth and brook-simple and
honest in its gentle viscosity about the only thing left to howl for will be
the loaves and the fishes. Crunchy leavened bread with Paris Creek butter and
kippers.
Selah.
Smoked salmon if you don't extend to kippers.
It smells pale and creamy like like big fleshy petals of the magnolia
and water lily, with a touch of ripe yellow peach juice. It tastes like a cool,
poised, bone dry healing unction.
It goes on and on and makes you really happy.
When He arrives, we'll join together in singing "I've tried the
broken cisterns Lord, alas the waters failed."
But just for contrast. Not a whiff of failure here. This is Masterly.
He'll get the joke.
Longhop
Mount Lofty Ranges South Australia Cabernet Sauvignon 2014
$18; screw cap; 14.4% alcohol
Crisp, jumpin'-up-your-nose Cabernet with all its twitchy
secret-service agent Cabernet ticks; its pretty violets and blueberries; the
soft 6B carbon and wood of the builder's pencil; the cooking chocolate; the
blackberries and mulberries glowering like conserve down below: this looks like
a very rich bastard's wine. If it weren't so dainty at the pointy end, and
steely clean in the worry of its long slice, it'd be right wing, like maybe Bin
707. 707 cuts blunt.
Drink. Glory be. Unctuous then sharp then looooonnngg. Acid at the end.
While that train went past my eyelid cinema played random frames from a vast
canon of gastronomic scenes, leaving me to wish very simply for dribbling pink
lamb or baby goat cutlets and a fresh lemon.
If you're a staunch vego and my sentiment seems barbaric I reckon you'd
be safe just hitting it all by itself. But then it's clean and determined
enough to go with your hairless shampoo-washed-rind cat cheese. Joke only. Your
cat will rush you for the cutlets. You can't milk cats.
This is brilliant, clean, intelligently-made upland Cabernet: fine
humourous and lively, at a really silly little price. Start your stomachs, face
the ink, BANG.
$20; screw cap; 14.5% alcohol
Cigars and old jarrah rafters be wafting up here, adding their funk to
the constant groove of the Bellevue parfumerie and confectionary down below.
And the fruiterers: We got lemons and bananas and musky confectioner's
sugar; we got candied violets and turkish delight; we got half-dried prunes and
pickled morello cherries; we got dried apple and soft fresh nougat. We got
eau-de-cologne mint.
For years I've been first to belly-flop into raves about these releases
from Corey Vanderleur. (That's his delicate hand, above.) Every one has then gone on to kick serious arse in the commercial
gong races and The Edinburgh Hotel punters' taste-off. Like the '13 has just
come second, regardless of price, in the huge Winestate
Australia-New Zealand Shiraz thing. No surprise to this little black duck. All
sold out, dammit. You first read of it here.
Corey's done it again with this 2014. Grown in some of the only real
trusty limestone of the district, which is of course in the main street with
terra rosa on the top if there's no houses in the way, it's a tickly, prickly
youngster, sure. But like its older kin, it'll grow as well as many wines you
may prefer to go out and spend an extra $100 on.
The only horror is that Corey's obviously feeling a bit like earning
something, so the price has just gone up 10%. Seriously. All the way up to $20.
That's three beers if you're lucky.
There are many Shiraz wines wearing the exclusive McLaren Vale Scarce
Earths value-adding badge that wither in the presence of this flash, stylish
bodgie. They may seriously cost $40-$100 more, but the buyer with the biggest
grin will usually be the red-lipped one with a couple boxes of this stashed
somewhere.
It's another elegant, tight, gloop-free zipping boogie of a Bellevue wine,
ideal for swooshy, spacy music like that Notorious Byrd Brothers
album nobody average remembers. Rickenbacker twelve-string; Crosby steering the
vocals. Then coz everyone was bitch-tripped and dwuggled they threw Croz out and put a horse in his place in the photo. And went ahead and used his perfect voice all over the fucking thing.
It'll also sound good with a minimalist spaghetti parmigiano, if you
must have solids.
Crackerjack.
Sorry about the swarms of adjectives. But you know.
16 December 2015
DON DITTER DIES AT 89 YEARS OF AGE
Don Ditter, Penfolds chief winemaker from 1975 to 1986, died last night in Sydney. He was 89 years of age. That's Don in the white shirt.
An absolute gentleman of the old school, Don took the reins at Grange after Max Schubert's retirement. His wines were perhaps the most staunch and firmly-oaked of the entire Penfolds canon. His Granges from 1977, 1983 and 1986 remain as outstanding examples of his art and craft.
The only time I ever saw Don without a blazer and tie was at Ray Beckwith's 100th birthday lunch at Penfolds Kalimna homestead in the Barossa in February 2012.
The photographer Richard Humphrys, nephew of Thelma Schubert, caught this image of Penfolds men John Bird, Don and Ray with Sandie Coff and her Mum Thelma, Max's widow, on that great historic day.
I am about to draw the appropriate cork. I can hear similar poppings all over the fine wine world. Vale, dear man. Ka-chink!
An absolute gentleman of the old school, Don took the reins at Grange after Max Schubert's retirement. His wines were perhaps the most staunch and firmly-oaked of the entire Penfolds canon. His Granges from 1977, 1983 and 1986 remain as outstanding examples of his art and craft.
The only time I ever saw Don without a blazer and tie was at Ray Beckwith's 100th birthday lunch at Penfolds Kalimna homestead in the Barossa in February 2012.
The photographer Richard Humphrys, nephew of Thelma Schubert, caught this image of Penfolds men John Bird, Don and Ray with Sandie Coff and her Mum Thelma, Max's widow, on that great historic day.
I am about to draw the appropriate cork. I can hear similar poppings all over the fine wine world. Vale, dear man. Ka-chink!
15 December 2015
JOHN CHARLES BANNON, PREMIER BLOKE
John Charles Bannon as I'd best remember him: tidy marathon runner and Premier of the free state of South Australia, on the steps of our parliament house, 1987 ... from the excellent book, Made in Adelaide, written by Marie Appleton, photographed by Stephen Hardacre and Denys Finney and published by Savvas, Adelaide 1987
Bannon clocks off: the death of a good honest man who trusted the wrong bastards and got shafted
by PHILIP WHITE - a shorter version of this was published in InDaily
South Australian Premier Don Dunstan knew about wine. On the wall opposite his desk hung a huge bright splash by Tom Gleghorne, called The 120 year old Shiraz.
Bannon the thespian: the carafe is empty
The joint was virtually
bankrupt before it even opened. It was run by the person who's just landed in
the Senate, without election: Ann Ruston (left, with her son and another bloke), more or less the deputy deputy Prime
Minister Bananaby Joyce's assistant minister for all the water in the
Murray-Darling Basin if there's any left and Bananaby lets her. She owns Australia's
biggest rose garden in the Riverland and now the National Wine Centre's our
most ridiculous wedding shack, with a wing full of the offices of the hipster
equivalent of the children of the wine bureaucrats who put it all up there at
the small consideration of about $50 million of our money.
Bannon clocks off: the death of a good honest man who trusted the wrong bastards and got shafted
by PHILIP WHITE - a shorter version of this was published in InDaily
South Australian Premier Don Dunstan knew about wine. On the wall opposite his desk hung a huge bright splash by Tom Gleghorne, called The 120 year old Shiraz.
When he wasn't out, being
amongst his people, or writing cookbooks, Don gazed into that dazzling beauty
all day, every day. Every time he lifted his eyes from the official papers.
Every time he answered the phone.
He chose it. It was there.
The 120 Year Old Shiraz ... I know the colour registration's all wrong but the images I dig from Tom Gleghorne's 1970 model iPhone are all a touch dodgy and the original's locked somewhere in the bowels of the Art Gallery Of South Australia ... thanks Tom for your approval to use it ... and thanks for inspiring Don and your life of brilliant work ... respect
The 120 Year Old Shiraz ... I know the colour registration's all wrong but the images I dig from Tom Gleghorne's 1970 model iPhone are all a touch dodgy and the original's locked somewhere in the bowels of the Art Gallery Of South Australia ... thanks Tom for your approval to use it ... and thanks for inspiring Don and your life of brilliant work ... respect
Those were the times when
our Premier also had a solid silver cigarette box full of Rothman's King Size Plain
on his official coffee table. I think it was a gift from somebody in Penang.
Context: Back
then, Her Majesty the Queen, and her Mum, smoked Rothmans King Size Plain every
afternoon at four in their special naughty room in the palace. I understood
from courtiers I courted that good Queen Bess favoured a Campari, her beloved Mum a
London dry gin. With their smokes.
Don's low table sported a
great big heavy Dunhill 'table' lighter and a huge ash tray. If things weren't
so bad as to prescribe a malt whisky, his was usually a good office for a glass
of fine South Australian red and a smoke.
Don was fun royalty.
Two premiers followed him:
Corky Corcoran and Honky Tonkin, neither of whom seem to remembered for much
other than the safety of their forgettable heterosexuality.
The electorate, led by the
media, felt contrast was desirable in those bony years.
Then, in 1982, South
Australia elected the fresh-faced marathon runner, John Charles Bannon to take
its premerial management chair.
Being the isolated village
Adelaide is, it was impossible for a young hack to avoid getting to know Bannon;
even call him a mate.

Bannon would abide 'a good
red' but he was really a posh Coopers Ale bogan: a Saints boyo. Way back before
cloudy became fine. He was outstanding as a law school student for stuff like
dressing as a mediæval peasant with Tony Brady to hand Prosh magazines to the
gentlemen coming and going from the Adelaide Club.
Bannon buddy: Wendouree co-proprietor/co-winemaker Tony Brady at the new toilet block he designed and built, complete with Zen contemplation retreat ... photo Philip White
But wine? Bannon's
Minister of Environment and Planning and Deputy Premier, the protestant trumpet-blowing
preacher Don Hopgood, was in charge when 25 hectares of the Penfolds Grange
vineyard was removed from the Register of State Heritage to permit its
subdivision and destruction by the unholy alliance of John Spalvins, managing
director of the Adelaide Steamship Company, beleaguered owner of Penfolds, and
the former Lord Mayor of Adelaide, the developer John Roche.
I'd been campaigning and
lobbying to have the entire Grange MacGill/Magill property saved as the
Australian Wine Centre. It was all under threat. There was nowhere on earth, I
argued, where one could come off an international flight, get in a car, turn
right, drive in a straight line through the prettiest, most naïve Victorian-era bluestone city and be in
that country's most famous historical wine complex within thirty minutes.
Max Schubert cried when
they pulled his vines out. They broke him.
He was my friend.
He was my friend.
Max Schubert in his tiny office in the bond store at Penfolds Magill ... photo Milton Wordley
Schubert Court, Grenache
Avenue, Traminer Way, Hermitage Road ... the street names in that bland
Tupperware Tuscany are obviously the work of some mega-sensitive developers'
poet.
I wonder how much they
paid for such sensual lyricism.
Roche spent some of his
profits developing a vineyard at Frankland in Western Australia. That was the
first vineyard I watched die of salt. Spalvins can still be spotted here and
there, dining on beef with tables of suits, drinking old vintages of Penfolds most
right-wing wine, Bin 707.
A wine named after a 1960s
Boeing passenger jetliner, for Bacchus' sake.
In a rare public spray,
Spalvins made the news in October, claiming that the current owner of Penfolds,
Treasury Wine Estates, was overvalued.
He'd know.
Reflections in the window of the great restaurant of Penfolds Magill Estate, Saturday 12 December 2015 ... finally, Treasury Wine Estates, the owner of Penfolds, has put some proper money into making the place what it should be ... that's Dr and Mrs Mary Penfold's original Grange cottage in the foreground, with the only surviving block of vines ... Shiraz, of course ... photo Philip White
Back to more ancient
history: Bannon and his Agriculture Minister, Kym Mayes, were suckered again by
the big wine ghouls: Penfolds, Lindemans and Orlando, the PLO. Under the guise
of relieving an oversupply of grapes somebody came up with the evil Vine Pull
Scheme.
The PLO sought a Barossa and
McLaren Vale that looked like Coonawarra or the Riverland. They hated dealing
with so many peasant grape-growers. They wanted cheaper, vaster, mechanical monoculture.
They were bedding
Monsanto.
The oversupply, of course
came from the swinging seats of the irrigated Riverlands, where the wine was
largely crap and the profits scarce for everybody other than the toughest
refinery-owning ethanol peddlers and the discount retailers of the day. Proto
Shoppies.
Who were a colourful lot.
Within a couple of years of the uprooting Dan Murphy himself did six months of
a two-and-a-half year sentence for sales tax fraud. He was deemed too crook to
serve the other two years.
Vine Pull. Folks like
Brian Croser, keen to develop the thing he called the Adelaide Hills around
himself, and vineyard development consultant Di Davidson, who made money
putting new broadacre vineyards everywhere, were suggesting that Barossa
viticulture as it stood on the old hand-hoed father-to-son scale was over. Just
over. Full stop. Finito. Verboten. Kaput.
There was a report,
commissioned by and paid for by the Bannon government, which led to that Vine
Pull destruction. Not to mention the wasting of many millions of taxpayer dollars
they then threw at growers who pulled up and pulled out.
Us punters paid cash in
advance to diminish the quality of the wine we bought.
All the Iberian varieties
we need in this new heat were trashed. While the cool climate
Cabernet/Chardonnay/Pinot evangelists had their day, irreplaceable, century-old,
pre-phylloxera bush vine Grenache, Mataro, Cinsault, Carignan and Shiraz were
bulldozed and burnt by the great-grand-children of the pioneers who planted
them.
Bacchus only knows the genetic
stocks we paid to destroy forever.
Gone.
Gone.
In doshing out our cash
like that, Bannon's government diminished the quality of the wine we were
addicted to buying from the unionists in the bulk discount bins. The pattern
was set: to this day they ensure that ethanol remains our only permitted
self-administered drug. Through their stranglehold over the Australian Labor
Party through the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, these
Woolies/Coles/Colonel Sadness/Macca's/Bunnings/Hungry Dan's/Shoppie
shelfstackers and tilljockeys now dictate our town planning, our cuisine and
ethanol types; its price ...
Before I get too far into
that, let me explain I got sick of writing that old men were crying in the
Barossa pubs because the PLO wouldn't pay them fair money for their fruit. Like
the standard minimum grape price was set by government at $186 per tonne. So a
big-squirting Riverland Sultana grower could squeeze out twenty or thirty tonnes
per acre at $186 the tonne, whilst a Barossa
dry-grown heritage bush vine vigneron would be picking less than a tonne
per acre and be paid that same $186.
I recall the 1983 Grange,
just for example. Very roughly, two tonnes of dry-grown bush vine fruit made about one pallet of
Grange: 60 dozen. That wine was soon selling for the same price per bottle that
Spalvins' Adsteam's Penfolds had paid for a tonne of the grapes.
Guess which grower took the
$4000 per acre Vine Pull cash?
"I just bulldozed my great-grandfather's
garden," they'd sob. I'd sob. The smoke hung around for three years. The
Barossa was blitzed. Nearly all the bush vine Grenache in McLaren Vale was bulldozed
and burnt.
Thirty pieces of silver.
I have tried for thirty
years to procure a copy of that report that we, the people, paid for. Patrick
Conlon, as Minister in the Rann Labor government, sincerely assured me eight
years ago that he'd spent ten grand of taxpayers' money attempting to find a
copy in the government files. Last time we spoke, he guaranteed it still wasn't
there.
Now Patrick's not there.
For fuck's sake. Labor spent
millions of our money butchering this country's irreplaceable viticultural
heritage, and they haven't got a copy of the report? Surely folks who write
such diatribes at the taxpayers' expense are obliged by contract to keep a copy
for inquisitive folks? Gimme. What have they got to hide?
The Australian National Wine Centre: an ordinary suburban arena imposed upon the Adelaide Botanic Garden, with its back to the people ... now little more than a bling-rich wedding joint
The other mob's no better.
Thanks to folks like Croser, the National Wine Centre rose from my old Penfolds
Magill idea. But his gang insisted their Shangri-La should be new, and his
Liberal mates agreed. Liberal Premier Dean Brown wanted to squeeze it into Tram
Barn A on Hackney Road. He was toppled by his colleague, John Olsen, who dared
to impose it on our Botanic Gardens.

Roses. Roses everywhere.
Weddings.
But Labor's back in, of
course, and such tasteless nonsense is repeating through the current
government's Regional Development Fund, where taxpayers' money is being
shloshed around like somebody else's water. Who are these people? From where I
stand, not one serious grant has made much sense. $2 million to Wolf Blass? $2
million to Chester Osborn?
There are more of these extravagances coming. It's
our money, not the bloody government's.
But back to John Charles
Bannon. At our first official encounter he came out from behind his desk, sat
on the easy chair beside me, put his right leg over his left knee, pulled his
sock down and his trouser up and played with a hair on his tight
marathon-running calf for about half an hour.
I knew he was a good,
truth-telling sort of a bloke. But then the State Bank splattered all over the wall
behind him while his dad, the great artist and printmaker, Charles Bannon, emerged
from the Flinders Ranges to begin nudging the rubbing strakes beside me in The Exeter.
John's gubmunt was crook; Charlie Bannon was still rooster cocky with his chest
thrust forward, but inside he was in worse shape than the economy. Cancer. The
hospital was a block away.
Everyone in that pub knew
that the bank was down three or four billion, yet it had never been mentioned
in parliament or the press. It took a respectful conservative, Jennifer Cashmore
to eventually stand up in the house and ask the big question: is the bank
crook, too? Upon which everyone feigned aghastment. Two years too late.
When Charlie was really
full-bore dying of cancer he phoned and asked me to get his war service
revolver from the glove box of his ute in the car park and smuggle it into his
ward so he could step away from the horror at his own leisure.
He teased me when I
explained I'd even consider shooting him as a mate, but whether I did it or he
did, I'd be an accessory to his slaughter, having smuggled the roscoe. Heaven
for him; gaol for me. Instead, the painters Basil Hadley and Tim John smuggled
proper food in, and we delivered the odd good red, whether he could drink it or
not.
In the middle of all that
I was on the local ABC891 doing the morning show and I'd just fanged through a
half hour of queries about the bank and asked who'd got all the billions and
why wouldn't the Premier answer our calls. That was hard work that stuff,
because I still admired John and his commitment and ordinariness and knew far
too much of who'd ripped this naïve state off and what that Premier's own
father thought of his son's management capacities and how much he thought that son
of his felt obliged to prove.
I ran down the corridor to
the toilets in the newsbreak. When I got back the producer said "Whitey,
Bannon's on the phone. He called back. He'll only speak to you."
No mention of the bank. He
told me Charles was dead and asked whether I'd eulogise at the funeral
gathering in the Don Bradman Room a few days hence.
"He loved drinking
with you blokes in The Ex," he said.
That, I thought, and think
more, was a mark of John Bannon's greatness. He was jealous of his fierce Dad's
ability to sit in the pub and drink Coopers with his mates. And he was simply,
country-boy naïve. He never expected to find real bad guys in his town.
Since his premiership,
look at who's had their arse on that awkward chair. Remember Dean Brown? He was
toppled by John Wayne Olsen (fair dinkum), who was of the same party, but could waterski barefoot and
went to live in California. Mike Rann? Remember him? He went to live in Italy.
We pay for these blokes to go and live in such places.
We pay for these blokes to go and live in such places.
Jay Weatherill? He just
gave $2 million to Wolf Blass and another $2 million to Chester Osborn. Our
bloody money.
He was no Don Dunstan, and
he was a runner more than a smoker, but at least I can remember John Charles
Bannon. He caught the same deadly stuff that topped his canny Dad, and lived it
out as proudly.
But as Premier of our
state? Bewildered and hoodwinked by the big bad end of town, he gave our money
to the busted-arse grape-growers.
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