GLENTHORNE CARVE-UP BACK ON TABLE

Hard-core Vineyard Researchers Could Learn From Gum Guardian: Do Science On Glenthorne Farm!
by PHILIP WHITE

Having seen enough vineyards rotting away this vintage, your correspondent was delighted this last week to attend what is Australia’s leading arboretum of eucalypts at Currency Creek.

This amazing plantation is largely the work of one obsessed man, Dean Nicolle Ph. D.; B. Sc. (Hons) Botany; B App Sc. (Natural resources Management). By the age of eight Dean (above) knew he would be dedicating his life to botany, by his sixteenth year he knew his focus would be the eucalypts, and was hard at work collecting and propagating seeds for his collection. He plants four trees from each source tree, and preserves other seedlings which are stored in scientific repositories elsewhere.

He now runs an arboretum of over 900 species and sub-species, totaling some 9000 plants. He talks of individual source trees in the Kimberly, the Simpson Desert or Cape York with the sort of familiarity most of us show our nephews and nieces. With other scientists, he is constantly running essential trials and experiments, and showed us an amazing study in progress examining the carbon-storing capacities of different types of eucalypt. To scientifically test the effect of bushfire on the different types, he even burnt a large part of his original plantings to a cinder, with the help of the local fireys.

It is alarming to realize that the knowledge of our most common indigenous tree rests so much in the zeal of one man, who has tirelessly done most of this off his own bat, working as a consultant to raise the funds to keep the whole complex exercise alive. To visit this quiet corner of the Fleurieu is a humbling, confounding experience.

Which brings me to Glenthorne Farm, the 206ha research station on O’Halloran Hill. In the late ’nineties, the late Greg Trott and I fought for some years to have this saved from sub-division and established as a research vineyard and winemaking site as part of the campus of the University of Adelaide. With some acute wheeling and dealing, and the assistance of Senator Robert Hill, Minister for Environment, and Di Laidlaw, local Minister for Planning, we eventually convinced the CSIRO to dramatically drop the fee it expected. The State government bought the land and a deed was drawn to have it transferred to the University for a dollar.

This deed was very specific. Amongst its Recitals are the following:

B. For many years the CSIRO has used the land for purposes of agriculture and as an agricultural research facility.

D. The CSIRO has only agreed to sell the Land on the proviso that the Land will be preserved and conserved for agriculture and other related activities and will not be used for urban development.

E. The University, as the person nominated by the State, has agreed to purchase the Land from the CSIRO, to preserve and conserve the Land for other related activities and not use, develop or permit the Land to be used or developed for urban development.

Furthermore, the Obligations of the University included the following very specific clauses:

4.1 The University covenants with the Minister that it will, subject to obtaining all necessary statutory approvals, do all reasonably necessary things to ensure that the Land is

4.1.1 preserved, conserved and used for Agriculture, Horticulture, Oenology, Viticulture, Buffer Zones and as Community Recreation Area, and

4.1.2 is available for Project Research Activities, University Research Activities, Education Activities and operating a Wine Making Facility.

4.2 The University covenants with the Minister that it will not at any time hereafter:

4.2.1 use or permit the Land to be used other than as provided for in subclause 4.1 unless such other use is approved in writing by a Minister acting as agent of the Crown,

4.2.2 undertake or permit Development or seek to undertake Development of the Land for uses other than those specified in subclause 4.1 unless such other use or Development (excluding Urban Development which will not be approved) is approved in writing by a Minister acting as agent of the Crown.

4.4 The University covenants with the Minister that it will not at any time hereafter sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of the whole or any portion of the Land unless it shall first procure from the purchaser or transferee a binding undertaking either to be bound by this Deed or to enter into a Deed with the Minister on the same terms as are contained in this Deed.

The University spent almost two years considering this deed before affixing its seal; Trott eventually set up a joint venture with BRL-Hardy, which would buy fruit from the first commercial-scale vineyard there, providing some of the funding for the further development of the facility according to the deed. The transfer eventually went through smoothly, and in the University newspaper, Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mary O’Kane promoted the deal as a sensible triumph for the future of viticultural research in Australia.

“The partnership agreement between the University and BRL Hardy—two of the icons of the South Australian wine industry—will strengthen South Australia’s position as an international leader in wine research and education,” she said.

“This is a strategic, long-term investment based on sound financial principles and an assessment of the future needs of the Australian wine industry.

“In addition to state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment at the Waite campus, the University will now have access to a large commercial vineyard managed by one of the world’s fastest-growing wine companies. This will be a tremendous advantage in ensuring that the University and the South Australian wine industry stay at the forefront of viticulture and oenology research and education.”

Professor O’Kane said most of the land would be put under vines and some research facilities would also be located on the site. The commercial vineyard would contribute further money for research at the University.

“We expect that the vineyard will begin to generate income for research from the third vintage,” Professor O’Kane said. “We have entered into a long-term contract with BRL Hardy for the management of the vineyard and sale of the fruit, more than 50% of which will be available to other winemakers.”

Through hopeless mis-management, and perhaps some nefarious long-term scheming, none of this occurred, and after nearly a decade the University attempted to sub-divide enough of the land to build a thousand houses. BRL-Hardy was absorbed by the giant Constellation Wines of upstate New York, which has now sold everything at bargain basement rates, dumping $1.6 billion, and virtually left Australia. Your correspondent nevertheless spent over a year lobbying to ensure the University kept its side of the very generous deal, and eventually then Planning Minister Paul Holloway ruled that the University should conform to the agreements it made in the deed.

Two short years later, now with Robert Hill as chancellor, the University is again angling to wriggle out of the deed and grab some cash, so the writer is dumbly preparing for another battle, the third, to see this land used to avoid some of the destruction and mismanagement we have seen in Australian viticulture in the last few years.

There are countless trials and tests which urgently need to proceed in the world of viticulture in this time of extreme climate, global warming, and ever-changing wine trends. There are thousands of grape varieties never even trialed in Australia. We need urgently to source better flavours, and more drought and disease resistant grape sorts. There is a desperate need to research better irrigation practices and recycling of water, and scientific tests of organic and bio-dynamic procedures must be commenced to keep international shelf space as the whole world of gastronomy moves toward more wholesome, eco-friendly farming and manufacture.

To think that all the billions invested in the wine industry sit there awaiting their Dean Nicolle leaves me angered and frustrated. With the disappearance of Constellation, and the possible fragmentation of Fosters wine group, now called Treasury, McLaren Vale suddenly has no big winery presence to rekindle that sensible JV arrangement and get on with it.

But now Angoves, the giant Riverland winery more aware than most of the troubles of irrigated viticulture is moving into McLaren Vale with a new cellar door and vineyards, perhaps it’ll take one of the last great wine families to rekindle some sense and some hard, cold science. Any company that saves precious southern vineyard and farming land from ghetto rash would rise immediately to hero status. Internationally.

GLENTHORNE FARM: THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE IS ATTEMPTING ONCE AGAIN TO WRIGGLE OUT OF THE DEED IT SIGNED, IN WHICH IT PROMISED TO USE THIS RESEARCH STATION FOR VITICULTURAL SCIENCE, WINEMAKING STUDIES AND HORTICULTURE WHILST PRESERVING AND CONSERVING THE ENTIRE 206 ha PROPERTY photo LEO DAVIS

NATASHA'S GASTRONOMIC INTELLIGENCE

NATASHA MOONEY: KICKING AUSSIE ARSE WITH THE NEW WAVE OF OLD WORLD VARIETIES




After The Albariño Affair Knocking Off A Few Marines Tash Mooney's Got The Touch!

by PHILIP WHITE - A version of this appeared in The Independent Weekly

When somebody, somewhere, decided that the Iberian variety, Albariño, was the great white hope to save Australia’s wineries from damnation, this writer was confounded by the reasoning. What would we be copying? Had anybody actually been in Spain and Portugal to see how, why and where it was grown and made? Had they checked the source geology to see whether we had anything to match it? Had they considered its tendency to put on high alcohol, given the world’s abandonment of our narcotic deadhead plonks?

Highly sceptical about the first efforts made here – they seemed too oily and lacked the precision of good Alboriño – I tended to put their awkwardness down to naive winemakers struggling to perfect something new. But the stuff wasn’t Alboriño at all. It was Traminer, an awkward grape indeed, used mainly for making autumn-brown sherry-like wines in Jura, and fairly agricultural, messy things in other obscure bits of the Old World. Somebody’d imported the wrong cuttings; the CSIRO distributed them; everybody planted them.

Now they expect us to drink them.

Traminer is the warty fat grandfather of the stylish, aromatic Gewurztraminer, a much more alluring variety which Australia has singularly failed to perfect. We can’t make the easy one, so what do we do? Attempt to make its awful progenitor, and call it Savignin, because that sounds a bit like the mega-trendy Marlborough, NZ, Sauvignon blanc which we drink by the oiltankerload. Sheesh. Who do they think we are?

Knocking off a few marines with Natasha Mooney before Jesus’ birthday, I tasted her range of “alternative varieties”, and immediately nominate her to be the selector of new things we should try: while she admits to being a learner, her uncommon gastronomic intelligence sees her doing greater things with the newbies than most blundering tossers.

After Roseworthy, Tash worked through some rather serious wine stables: Penfolds, Lindemans, and Barossa Valley Estates. Wisely selecting fruit from the ancient vines of the two mighty Elmores, Roehr and Shulz, she virtually invented E&E Shiraz. Her first bash at this beauty got her best red, then best wine, at the International Wine Challenge and only the second Australian to make the Wine Spectator top ten. So she has a profound and abiding respect for the works of those who went before, and understands, as she says, that “profit is still shiraz-driven.” But her experience working vintage across the Old World is what we see emerging in her brave new landmarks.

She tipped me an Arneis from Caj Amadio’s vineyard on the banks of the South Para Reservoir, north of Kersbrook. It’s for the pointy end of her Fox Gordon range: branded as Anniversary Hill. It equals the two excellent 09 Langhorne Creek whites – a Fiano and a Greco al Tufo – that Briony Hoare released last year under her Beach Road label. Beautifully aromatic, richly flavoured and textured wine, with only 11.9% alcohol. This is the duck’s guts.

If purple had a smell it would be her Barossa Aglianico, an obscure variety from Greece via southern Italy, which was next. Blanched cashews and deep cherries in a silk sheen that gradually becomes velvet as the tannins rise and the swooning begins. Then a Barossa Sagrantino, the Umbrian grape: all musk sticks, beetroot, prune and white pepper; impossibly enveloping in its aroma, and yet fine and focused and furry with lemon pith tannins as it winds its way down your little red lane.

A bright and cheery Sangiovese next; squishy and jolly; bouncy and beautifully bright; a drink that leaves the purple kisser grinning while the paw goes out for more. Just to show she can do the odd Parkerilla, she showed a Zinfandel, made big and alcoholic for Darryl Groom’s Californian business.

“To me it’s good honest fun mucking about with these varieties, and while this is a very difficult one – there are better varieties than this – these guys are very persistent about the style they want, so it’s a pleasure, in away, to learn. But my other hobbyhorse is Cabernet ... ” and on she went to explain her concerns about how much of the new varieties the community can absorb, and just how great the traditional stalwarts can be, pouring classic Cabernet sauvignon, Shiraz, and blends of the two, concluding with her mighty Barossa Valley Estate E&E Black Pepper Shiraz 98.

“You’ve got to respect the old masters”, she added, staring into the glass. “We’ll never replicate this with new varieties.” And then, with the wonderment of a teenage pop fan, she explained her thrill when, delivering Meals on Wheels in the Barossa, she discovered her next call was Ray Beckwith, the great Penfolds wine scientist from the thirties, who among other world-breaking discoveries first revealed the importance of pH in winemaking.

“It was like serving David Bowie”, she said. “I want to go back and listen to him."

Which she has since done, and will do again. As well as taking the odd Harley scoot with her winemaking husband StepHen Dew, of Kaesler Wines, managing two scarily sharp kids, and training thoroughbreds by riding big time trackwork every morning of the week. I dunno how she does it.

CHECK TASH'S FOX-GORDON RANGE FOR A LOOK AT BOTH PAST AND FUTURE

HICKINBOTHAM SPEECH RILES WINE POLICE

CASTAGNA'S BIODYNAMIC WINERY AT BEECHWORTH; BEAUTIFUL WINE REFUSED EXPORT APPROVAL

Great Aussie Plonky At Fault With Fault Obsessives
Letting The Wrong Crap Out And The Wrong Crap In
by PHILIP WHITE - A VERSION OF THIS STORY APPEARED IN THE INDEPENDENT WEEKLY

The Ian Hickinbotham speech I quoted last week grew legs. Hick addressed the Sydney International Wine Competition, talking about bacterial diseases in wine, and human tolerance to them. He wondered whether the export approval tasters employed by the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation were “actually stultifying individualism in our winemakers” by occasionally refusing export approvals to wines unfamiliar to them. His insinuation was that they imagined too many wines had bacterial spoilage.

Hick’s point was that the forensic scrutiny with which judges seek faults eliminates many interesting wines with organoleptic characters which they mistake as faults. He said that there are no bacteria in modern finished wines, implying that everybody should relax a little, and that maybe we don’t need these approval tastings at all. Huon Hooke reported this in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Steve Guy, who manages the export tastings, quickly reassured his troops that Hick was out of touch: things have changed; systems improved. But beautiful wines – Grange, Castagna, Torbreck etc. - have been refused approval in past years. These judgings have been like our wine shows: powerful levellers that can lop the eccentric, brave, and strange, and reinforce the industrial status quo which writers and drinkers all over the Old World are rejecting. They’ve approved thousands of dead flat boring crap plonks plastered with dot paintings and weird beasties, then denied the likes of Castagna et al an export approval because they thought they could smell something funny in one of his biodymanic beauties.

Having had one wine refused approval by two tasting panels, Julian Castagna told the authorities he would take the wine to London, call a press conference with television and all the wine critics who'd been suggesting Australian wines were all too boring and show them the quaklity of wines that we were not permitted to export. He suddenly got his approval.

Hick also took a typically obtuse swipe at writers who recommend wines which smell of lychees. “This disease is a consequence of bacteria attacking grape sugar during some stage of fermentation”, he said.

Lychee is an aroma, and flavour, I often find in gerwurztraminer. I like it there. Gewurz can also have lovely musk aromas, and rosewater, or turkish delight. Very few Australians have mastered this grape: this country is too hot for something that comes from the colder reaches of Alpine Europe.

Gewurztraminer succeeds in parts of New Zealand and Tasmania, but you need a hillbilly winemaker. Wild yeast, old oak, disdainful treatment is what it loves. No hard hats or safety glasses required.

In the early ’eighties, I learned to love the Reserve and Vendage Tardive gewurztraminer of Hugel, and my Alsace mate, Michel Dietrich, taught me how to drink this variety with his father’s Dietrich of Kaiserberg wines, with choucroute, the Alsace sauerkraut. You serve a great steaming plate of pickled cabbage with dollops of hot mustard and grilled smoked sausages of pork or game packed with chili and black pepper and you drink gallons of flinty, musky gewurztraminer.

Now, if gewurztraminer is not the ideal grape for this baked slab of country, I cannot imagine why on Earth anybody’d gamble for success with traminer, the original alpine white from which the slightly pink gewurztraminer mutated.

So why are Australian winemakers who have never worked in Alpine Europe suddenly growing, making, and marketing, traminer? They don’t attempt gewurztraminer. So why its awkward grandfather? And why are they calling it albariño?

Because they were sold a dud, that's why.

In the desperate search for new flavours, somebody in Australia decided that the punters would just love alboriño, the acidic thick-skinned white from Galacia and northern Portugal, where it’s called alvarinho. The CSIRO, in response to persistent demands, imported some, put it through the serpentine wiles of the government's quarantine process, and grew a scrillion cuttings, which they sold. These have been planted along the dead River, and everywhere from Orange to Clare, the Barossa, and McLaren Vale.

I expected it would take our winemakers a few vintages to work out what to do with the new baby. They seemed oilier, somehow thicker than expected. “They’ll work it out” I told myself thoughtfully. You can check my reviews by searching for alboriño on DRANKSTER. But it suddenly appears that the stuff they bought is savignin blanc B, a Tyrolean grape that also grows in Jura.

Even forgetting the freezing alpine nature of these places, which we do not emulate anywhere, it would be fair to say that the “yellow wines” which are where most European savignin ends up, are not too much in the way of your standard Australian industrial export-approved sort of a thing, if you get my drift. Try the Jura Vin Jaune recipe: six years in old untopped barrels, where a yeast like flor grows on the meniscus, slowing oxidation, to make a sort of unfortified sherry.

Savignin blanc B is traminer. Their DNA matches, like zinfandel and primitivo. Same diff. We may well see some respected albariños suddenly becoming savignin blanc B, much to the embarrassment of those critics who raved fulsomely about their quality and promise. To do their savignin blanc B justice, all Australian regions might have to sprout a snow-peaked mountain like the one on the Seaview bottle. Pity the whitecoats hadn’t done a little import checking and sniffed the cuttings for lychee.

But the lawyers will make up for them. This’ll take years.

COMMENT FROM IAN HICKINBOTHAM:

"I should tell you that the lychee smell of 'disease' is not that of Gewuerztraminer. It is possible you have never seen it, but it is most likely to occur in Chardonnay (where it does not 'over-lap' the pleasant lychee smell associated with that fragrant variety).

"Interestingly, Gewuerztraminer still only constitutes 0.5% of German vineyards (in spite of its name). People tire of it!"

BOOZEBIZ CHATTERBOX TAKES GREEN HUE

ENVIRONMNENTAL SCIENTIST DR DAVID PATON ON THE RECEDING WATERS OF THE MURRAY-DARLING ESTUARY: EVERY BARGAIN BIN CLEANSKIN YOU BUY SUCKS MORE WATER OUT OF THIS RIVER SYSTEM


Solving The Carbon Footprint Crisis
While Keeping The Booze Flowing
by PHILIP WHITE

Bacchus only knows just how far The Wine Supply Chain Council is willing to go to ensure wine drinkers make less of a mess of the global environment, but they’re having another talkfest in Melbourne next week.

The shocking condition of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, with the cruel extant fact of the death of its estuary, is partly the work of Australian wine drinkers determinedly demanding cheap squirt; partly the work of the thirsty who buy from the humungous booze mongers of Britain and the USA.

It is certainly partly the work of some of the winemakers of Clare and the Barossa, who built their own private pipelines to import salt water from the Murray to guarantee sufficient irrigation supplies to maintain their manufactory of industrial quality wine for export.

Such water inevitably increases the salinity of the ground to which it is applied.

The WSCC was devised to address such issues, but tends to approach the problem from the “must have” point of view, as in “these markets exist, they must have our wine; ergo we must work out how to get it there”.

The meeting follows one held in South Africa last year and will set the cooperative research agenda for the next 3-5 years to benefit wine producers.

“Experts from around the world will talk about how to ensure consumers receive the best wines possible” the WSCC says.

“The meeting on January 13-16 includes 25 industry leaders, academics and researchers. Australian representatives at the workshop include researchers from CSIRO and Monash University and senior managers from some of Australia's wine companies including Yalumba and Orlando Wines.”

(Orlando is part of Pernod-Ricard. It is not Australian.)

CSIRO mathematical and information sciences research leader, Dr Simon Dunstall, said one of the major issues for discussion will be how to reduce the environmental impacts of the wine and grape juice industry's transport task.

"Transport is a significant consideration in Australia, particularly the carbon footprint involved in moving wine over long distances," he said.

Consumers are quickly becoming directly concerned with such issues, and some wineries are already taking advantage of this.

I have, for example the first bottles from Zilzie’s Bulloak Carbon Neutral wine brand on my tasting bench now. From irrigated Murray Basin vineyards, these retail at $10 in Adelaide, a full day’s drive from Zilzie.

London is a lot further.

Surely the best way of easing the carbon footprint is to grow grapes closer to the markets which want the wine. If Texas can produce wines as fine as Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin and perhaps Coonawarra (see articles below), then why shouldn’t Texas be producing such fruit for the US market?

A hint of the future lies in Fosters new three-year contract with the Indian wine company, Indage Vinters, (formerly Champagne Indage), to package Fosters’ wine in Britain.

This wine will be shipped from Australia, South America and South Africa in tank, and packaged in the marketplace which drinks it. This reduces the footprint of such ridiculous mechanisms as taking bottles from Italy to Australia, filling them up, then taking them to Britain for sale.

While the UK drinks over 110 million cases a year, and drinking more and more of it at home, the feverish pressure there to supply ever-cheaper booze is forcing such Australia producers to chop costs.

Similar pressure in India will see more of that country’s booze made there.

Since Stephen Hickinbotham worked a consultant to the Indian government in the early ’eighties, it has been apparent that India can easily produce sufficient wine to supply its fledgeling market.

Given the water supplies, the same thing can be said of China.

One wonders just how the WSCC committee can flex its direction to suit such massive collisions of the booze world’s tectonic plates.

Topics the Council has discussed include: tracking temperature changes of wine as it is shipped around the world; improving order management processes; and, exploring the finding that 99% of wine currently made in the United States came from states that voted Democrat(!).

Dunstall's team uses a branch of mathematics called 'operations research' to simulate and optimise supply chains in a range of industries. It recently developed a “grape maturity forecasting system” which is being used in Australia and New Zealand to estimate when grapes are ready to harvest.

This was not much use in the harvest of 2008: we shall soon see how well it works this vintage, which is upon us.

.

UN MAN RECALLS GLENTHORNE GRAPE DEAL

THE HON. ROBERT HILL, AUSTRALIA'S AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS, WAS FEDERAL MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT WHEN HE ASSISTED TRANSFER GLENTHORNE FARM FROM THE CSIRO TO THE ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY AT ABSOLUTELY MINIMAL COST

UN Ambassador Insists No Housing Permitted On Glenthorne Plan

Greedy University Scrambles For Credibility

By PHILIP WHITE

The Hon. Robert Hill, Australia’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, New York, says the whole idea of the CSIRO letting Adelaide University have Glenthorne Farm was to prevent it from being subdivided.

“The land was sold to the State Goverment so that it would be preserved from urban development” Mr. Hill told DRINKSTER.

“They nominated Adelaide University.”

The Adelaide University, however, continues with its push to sell 1,000 housing blocks on the land.

In a demand many consider akin to blackmail, the University says that if allowed to break the Deed it signed in 2001, which very specifically disallowed housing, it would use the money raised to reforest the South Mount Lofty Ranges over the next 100 years.

The University was given the land after winemaker Greg Trott convinced the South Australian government to purchase it from the CSIRO.

Mr. Hill, a Senator for South Australia (1981 – 2006) was Federal Minister for Environment from March 1996 to October 2001. He assisted in ensuring the CSIRO - which could have subdivided the land, as it certainly needed the money - to keep its price down to $7 million.

While the University Council gave authority for the Glenthorne Deed to be signed on the 26 July 1999, the University then took almost two years considering the deal.

Vice-Chancellor Mary O’Kane did not sign the deed and affix the University seal until 24 May 2001. Mr. Hill was Federal Minister for Environment for that duration. He played a key role in assisting the transfer of the land from the CSIRO through the State Government, and Minister for Planning, Di Laidlaw, to the University of Adelaide.

The Deed says “For many years the CSIRO has used the land for purposes of agriculture and as an agricultural research facility.

“The CSIRO has only agreed to sell the Land on the proviso that the Land will be preserved and conserved for agriculture and other related activities and will not be used for urban development.

“The University, as the person nominated by the State, has agreed to purchase the Land from the CSIRO , to preserve and conserve the Land for other related activities and not use, develop or permit the Land to be used or developed for urban development”, the Deed says.

“Part of the farm was to be planted with grapes for research and as a repository of genetic material”, Mr. Hill said of convenor Greg Trott’s plan for Glenthorne.

“The balance was to be conserved as open space and ultimately rehabilitated.

“It was a unique opportunity, care of CSIRO, to provide a large green space between the suburbs of southern Adelaide”, Mr Hill enthused.

Mr Hill held a number of shadow portfolios in opposition including Justice, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Public Administration, Education and Science and Technology before taking Ministry. He studied law at the Universities of Adelaide and London, where he took his Masters. He lists environmental education among his deepest interests.

The University pledged to forever preserve, conserve and use Glenthorne Farm for agriculture, horticulture, oenology, viticulture, buffer zones and for community recreation.

It further promised to ensure that land was available for project research activities, University research, education activities and operating a wine making facility.

Since the Roseworthy winemaking college was closed, and that college was absorbed by Adelaide University during the determined deputy-chancellorship of Brian Croser, there has been no room at the University’s Waite campus for full-scale industrial winemaking experiments or realistically-scaled viticulture.

The purpose of having Glenthorne passed from the CSIRO to the University was to permit large tracts of land for viticulture research and winemaking, as such facilities were not covered at the jam-packed Waite Campus.

The trial vineyard there is only a couple of acres on the Urrbrae Secondary School campus.

Adelaide University winemaking students are now expected to learn their industrial hands-on knowledge out in the wine industry, which enjoys the cheap labour, but doesn’t supply the space for trials and independent industrial-scale viticultural experimentation which Roseworthy permitted and Glenthorne promised.

I refer to the sort of research no transnational will pay for, especially when grapes are in oversupply and stupidly cheap, and the environment looks dangerously short-term.

The current parlous state of the Australian wine industry reflects the yawning need for such research. (See the following article.)

If our University had been up to speed with issues of drought-resistant viticulture and minimal irrigation procedures, our precious River should still have some water in it, and we should have wines which the world wants to buy at a fair price.

Martyn Evans, boss of Community Engagement at the University, recently summoned me to a tour on which he tensely struggled to prove there was no need for real-scale vineyards or winemaking, considering the excellence of the laboratory research facilities at the Waite, which he seemed to regard as part of his vast estate.

I agreed that the facilities are very impressive, surpassed only by the bright diligence and tenacity of the staff there.

However, I couldn't help feeling that the great minds which had been briefed for my visit were holding a preset spin line: that indeed the University needed no ground for full-scale independent viticulture research or winemaking.

Ask a winemaker/viticulturer if free land is neeeded for tests and experiments, and I know what you'll be told, especially if the land is perfect for the job and a quick 20 minute drive away.

Powers that be at the University seem to have decided long ago to sit on Glenthorne until all those original promises were forgotten, and then go for the money with a subdivision.

They seem genuinely surprised that anybody remembers the details of the arrangement, let alone objects intelligently to their audacious intention to scrap the solemn agreement which got them the gift of this priceless land to be protected and maintained in perpetuity.

Evans looked incredulous when I asked him why he hadn’t considered subdividing the reserve Peter Waite bequeathed to the University in 1914 – land which has increased with further gifts and purchases. There is 147 hectares of prime land there now, beside Brownhill Creek, immediately behind the new laboratories and greenhouses.

Being in the ranges, and not maritime coastal, this property is obviously more appropriate for the nursery work the University says it will conduct on the undeveloped land at Glenthorne in order to reforest the South Mount Lofty Ranges.

And of course this Hills Face Zone would be worth much more as housing land than any of Glenthorne.

“You are obviously more respectful of the citizens of Mitcham and Springfield than you are of those of Hackham”, I suggested to Mr. Evans.

I told him that I believe in moral exactitude, which seemed to leave him dumbfounded.

Neither Mr. Evans, nor the popular environmentalist, Dr. David paton, whom the University habitually wheels out to defend and announce its intentions, have ever laid eyes on the Deed.

The late Greg Trott, visionary environmentalist and founder of Wirra Wirra, carefully engineered this Deed so that Glenthorne could be used for the research of dryland viticulture, which would be essential at this time of climate change, drought, and consequent industry collapse.

Trott imagined the revegetation of the creeklines and headlands, and the rest of the land used for trialling premium-quality minimal-irrigation drought-resistant vine types that had never before been tested in Australia.

There are at least 10,000 grape varieties yet to be planted here.

Some of the best hot climate dry-land red wines on Earth, for example, right now come from from Greece, which has always been a laughing stock wine producer in Australia. We don't even know what these varieties are.

Trott was keen to see Glenthorne used for such things, and biodynamic and organic viticulture trials. He was particularly interested in developing natural bird management techniques without shotguns or noisy scaring devices.

To fund his idea, Trott struck a deal with Stephen Millar, the boss of BRL-Hardy, to participate in these trials and ensure his company bought the grapes not used by University students.

BRL-Hardy immediately sought to plant a large frontignac vineyard.

“Fronti” of high quality would have brought the earliest possible monetary return to both partners, as BRL-Hardy sought to use it to make a low-alcohol, high quality Moscato d’Asti-style sparkling wine, then barely known in Australia.

This would have provided the company with a premium low-alcohol product at a time of increasing wowserism, and quickly provided funds to assist the University trial other types of minimal-irrigation or completely dry-grown viticulture.

Industry sources say Deputy-Chancellor Croser wanted chardonnay and not frontignac.

BRL-Hardy said Australia had far too much chardonnay of the quality Glenthorne would provide, but no quality frontignac.

Eventually BRL-Hardy found the University’s approach unworkable, and withdrew from the arrangement.

The University interprets this as the site being “not viable” for viticulture. It also imagines this as being "full consultation with the wine industry."

While Dudley Brown, Chairman of McLaren Vale Wine Grape And Tourism, says nobody in his region has been consulted by the University over the issue, the University claims it has widely consulted the wine industry, which it claims says Glenthorne is not viable for vineyard, partly because there’s insufficient water.

The University obviously has no problem finding water for the 1,000 houses it wants, and cannot produce any wine industry operative who will publicly state the land is not viable for viticulture.

“It’s bloody perfect for viticulture” McLaren Vale winemaker Jock Harvey said before handing the Chairmanship of the McLaren Vale Vale Wine Grape And Tourism to Mr. Brown.

“Experimental vineyards; community fruit and vegetable gardens, native reveg, box gums .... all the things we need to be doing except building more of the crap housing government seems to expect us to accept in this district."

In response to attitudes like this, Patrick Conlon, Minister for Infrastructure, has courted winemakers' concerns over Bowering Hill, another piece of contentious McLaren Vale land which had been deemed due for subdivision by planning Minister Paul Holloway.

Mr. Conlon recently declared his government "has no intention to use the [Bowering] land for housing.

"This land is unique given its location and potential importance to the wine industry and tourism", he said, "and their input into the future potential and nature of development in this area, along with the broader community, will be important."

Immediately upon taking the McLaren Vale Chairmanship, Mr. Brown issued a statement saying his organisation expected the University to stick to its vows in the Glenthorne Deed. His statement suggested the organisation would be delighted to have its first consultation with the University, but that the University should keep all the promises it made in the Deed.

To make matters worse for the University, Planning Minister Holloway recently announced an end to rampant urban development in the gazetted wine districts of Barossa and McLaren Vale.

To ensure there would be no housing on Glenthorne Farm, the Mclaren Vale winemakers drew their appellation boundary around the farm’s northern fenceline some years back, with the full knowledge of the University.

“Look it’s simple common sense”, Mr. Holloway said. “Why would you want to encroach on areas that are important to the economy because of the significant contribution that they make to the state’s economy through the wine industry and the tourism industry?

“Clearly that would be put at threat if we allowed rampant urban development within those areas.”

So, Mr. Conlon. Is this little matter of 1,000 houses rampant urban development?

As Glenthorne is truly the gateway to the McLaren Vale, through which all tourists approach, and there is the little, ahem, matter of this Deed and the solemn vows contained therein, would you bow to the sly developers at the University of Adelaide?

If they expect the community to let them break a vow they made eight short years ago, in exchange for a priceless spread of land which we bought for them, and entrusted them with, why should we now trust their offer of a hundred years of reforestation of a huge range many kilometres distant?

A Deed with seals and signatures is the heaviest piece of pledge/vow/oath this society has. Monarchs have run entire countries on such terse, unbreakable solemnities for thousands of years. Modern republics and states use them.

What do we have to replace this? The word of a politician? The solemn promise of the current staff of the University of Adelaide?

FOR DETAILS OF THE UNIVERSITY’S PUBLIC OPINION POLLING, CLICK

Honest Boffin Takes Polish Off Glenthorne Poll

GOTCHA! From The University's Own Paper

Vice-Chancellor Professor Mary O'Kane pictured at Glenthorne with the Chairman of the Friends of Glenthorne, Peter Smytherman. Photo: John Drislane.

Vineyard planned in Glenthorne Farm handover

From Adelaidean - Volume 10 Number 6 - News from Adelaide University - July 2001

GLENTHORNE Farm — the former CSIRO property at O’Halloran Hill in Adelaide’s southern suburbs — is being handed over to Adelaide University by the State Government for use as a vineyard and wine research facility.

The 200 hectare property was bought by the State Government from the Commonwealth in 1998 after it had been vacated by the CSIRO’s Division of Health and Human Nutrition.

Welcoming the decision, Adelaide University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mary O’Kane, said the University had agreed to establish a commercial vineyard at Glenthorne in partnership with BRL Hardy.

“The partnership agreement between the University and BRL Hardy—two of the icons of the South Australian wine industry—will strengthen South Australia’s position as an international leader in wine research and education,” she said.

“This is a strategic, long-term investment based on sound financial principles and an assessment of the future needs of the Australian wine industry.

“In addition to state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment at the Waite campus, the University will now have access to a large commercial vineyard managed by one of the world’s fastest-growing wine companies. This will be a tremendous advantage in ensuring that the University and the South Australian wine industry stay at the forefront of viticulture and oenology research and education.”

Professor O’Kane said most of the land would be put under vines and some research facilities would also be located on the site.

The commercial vineyard would contribute further money for research at the University.

“We expect that the vineyard will begin to generate income for research from the third vintage,” Professor O’Kane said.

“We have entered into a long-term contract with BRL Hardy for the management of the vineyard and sale of the fruit, more than 50% of which will be available to other winemakers.”

Mr Angus Kennedy, BRL Hardy’s Operational and Technical Director, said the vineyard development would benefit the entire South Australian wine industry.

“This initiative is effective in that a number of parties will benefit from the project over a number of years. We are looking forward to working closely with Adelaide University for the betterment of the South Australian wine industry,” he said.

Professor O’Kane commended the State Government, the Commonwealth and the CSIRO on working together to produce an agreement on Glenthorne Farm that would deliver long-term economic benefits to the State.

She also paid tribute to the University’s Deputy Chancellor, vigneron and Executive Chairman of Petaluma Ltd, Mr Brian Croser, for his role in negotiating a new future for Glenthorne.

Professor O’Kane said the University was aware of local residents’ concerns about the future of the property and would be consulting with them about the vineyard plans.

“We are seeking planning approval for the vineyard, which will include an extensive buffer zone around the site,” she said.

“We will be working closely with BRL Hardy to minimise noise and inconvenience to the local community. BRL Hardy has extensive experience in developing and operating vineyards in an urban environment, and we will be making available the University’s full research resources to ensure responsible environmental management of the site.”

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Glenthorne War Hots Up

Glenthorne Farm: the houses are coming over the hill - PHOTO: Leo Davis

The following letters were published in The Messenger Press on 5 November 2008

Deed excludes urban development

Citizens, never succumb to the bullying of the University of Adelaide.

Look at Glenthorne Farm. Seven short years ago, the University made a solemn vow to use this priceless land for agriculture, horticulture, viticulture, winemaking, community recreation, research, and education. The whole deal was dependent upon the University never using the land for any other purpose. The deed it signed repeatedly forbids any urban development. The University cannot even “seek to undertake development” without written approval from the minister. The deed repeatedly, precisely “excludes urban development”. It says urban development “will not be approved”.

With the help of Senator Robert Hill, the late Greg Trott engineered this land transfer with the government, the CSIRO and the University. Trott envisaged revegetated headlands and creeklines and the investigation of drought-resistant grape varieties and organic and biodynamic minimal irrigation viticulture.

The University now says it can’t do this because there’s no water. Don’t they know what drought means?

They obviously hope to get the water for their 1,000 new houses from the reservoir across the road, or the desal plant pipe that Water SA is currently trying to push through Glenthorne. They seem unaware that 40% of McLaren Vale’s vineyards depend upon recycled water from housing, and that the figure’s increasing rapidly.

In its pompous claims about its far-sighted understanding of climate change, the University fails to address the biggest issue facing this state: the River. If its almighty wine college had kept ahead of issues of drought, climate change and stupid irrigation-dependent viticulture in the wrong places, the wine industry would be in much better shape, and the Murray might still be a river.

Now, the University wants us to believe that it will sign a solemn agreement to guarantee the money it gets from its housing development will be spent, over the next century, on reforesting the Mount Lofty Ranges.

Of what value is a document signed by this University?

PHILIP WHITE

Appalling farm plan

I’m appalled at the University of Adelaide’s decision to promote housing developments at Glenthorne.

Is it appropriate that the guilt of 150 years of land degradation be passed onto a few southern suburb residents by suggesting that ``if this project does not go ahead then we are basically accepting species extinction’’?

Seriously, is this research centre and 100ha of revegetation the crucial difference between survival and extinction for species?

And where does it get the figure for revegetation of 150,000ha from this money? Who’d be willing to give up 150,000ha of land for just under $66 a hectare - I’m sorry that is just plain rubbish.

Dr Paton also seems to believe that no one is doing any suitable revegetation, anywhere, ever!

What a slap in the face to all the hard-working volunteer groups I’ve worked with which do a great job with what’s available to them.

If this research is so crucial why does Glenthorne have to be sold?

It represents a chance to re-establish 200ha of a Commonwealth-listed endangered grey box woodland now that sounds more like a legacy and something to be proud of.

This proposal is arrogance of the highest degree. Where else in the world could you have land purchased by the government, for $7 million, sold to the university for $1 to be kept forever as open space for southern residents, then sold for a $999,999 dollar profit? Absurd.

Dr Paton’s vision of a woodland recovery centre is unfortunately muddying the waters.

No one denies the environment is suffering - personally I’ve spent my life and career working to conserve endangered plants - but to use an overused cliché: You can put lipstick on this pig, but it’s still a pig.

JERRY SMITH

Boffins Butcher Trott's Dream

by PHILIP WHITE - This was published in The Independent Weekly on 17 October 2008

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The ghost of Greg Trott is this minute glowering angrily over Glenthorne Farm and the University of Adelaide.

Trott, the founder of Wirra Wirra, and Spiritual Guidance Counsellor of the southern Vales, loved recalling his youthful journeys across vineyard and pasture in the back of the ute, en route to Hackney High. He fought to keep the old CSIRO research station free of housing, like all those rolling farmlands before they were devoured by malignant villa rash.

With the aid of Robert Hill, then a Senator, Trott had the 208 ha O’Halloran Hill property passed from the CSIRO to the University of Adelaide. A solemn deed was signed, prohibiting housing, but deeming compulsory the use of the land for viticultural research, experimentation and education. Trott wanted the testing of organic and biodynamic grape framing techniques; the trialling of new drought resistant varieties, providing the winemaking and viticulture students at the University with a king-sized opportunity to test their skills and climb new heights of environmentally responsible viticulture.

He dreamed of revegetating the headlands and creeklines with native plants, providing lungs for the south, walkways for human recreation, and homes for the native birds that would move in. He knew these birds would eat the grapes, providing more room for research in the tricky field of birdlife and vineyards co-existing without shotguns.

Dryland viti research became more essential when the Roseworthy winemaking campus was closed, meaning the loss of that full-sized winery, and its vineyards, for trials and education. Alan Hickinbotham kindly shouted the Uni a kindergarten winery at the Waite, but there was no room there for serious industrial-scale winemaking or vineyards and students were suddenly expected to gain their practical winemaking experience out in the industry they aimed to eventually work in.

This supplied the wine refineries with guaranteed cheap subservient labour at vintage, and the students would be trained in status quo industrial winemaking, limiting the free-thinking, ground-breaking experimentation which makes universities special and harvests the fruits of young minds set free to fly within the study of their choice.

Ironically the refineries most of these students would work in are retreating from this drought-stricken country and the river they helped to kill. If more free-thinking and enlightened experimentation had been encouraged all along, these transnationals would be better off right now, and our River would be in better nick.

The University says it has consulted intensely with the wine industry, that the land is not suited to viticulture, that there’s not enough water. Who, for Bacchus’s sake? Brian Croser? Alan Hickinbotham? The transnationals? They don’t seem to realise that McLaren Vale is almost 100% drought-proof since its enlightened move to using recycled water from the villa rash that surrounds it, or that the Glenthorne vineyards would test new techniques in dry-ground viticulture. This is even more critical since Rudd parsimoniously budgeted to close the existing CSIRO dryland viti research station at Mildura.

As for consulting with the wine industry? I recall Ian Sutton, Chief Executive of the Winemakers’ Federation, Wine Australia Pty. Ltd., Australian Wine Foundation and the Australian Wine and Brandy Producers' Association, saying accusations of a lack of consultation with the wine industry in his planning of the National Wine Center was simply balderdash. "My job's not to consult the wine industry -- my job is to represent the wine industry", he said.

The same university which now intends to break its deed of trust on Glenthorne Farm soon had the National Wine Centre as its own, at a peppercorn rent that draws puke from the average wine student struggling for digs.

If consulting had occurred, you’d think they’d talk to Jock Harvey, grapegrower, winemaker, and Chairman of the McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism association.

“Consultation?” he growled. “I haven’t heard a word! Of course it’s viable for vineyards. It’s ideal for vineyards. Not enough water? Where are they going to get the water for the housing? The reservoir across the road! And what sort of housing? We’ve got the cheapest, dumbest housing along this coast. It’s built to make money for the developer, the tradesmen, the council and the government. All short-term. Nothing green about it.

“If they’re interested in regreening” he stormed on, “they should take a look at what this community has done on the Willunga escarpment. This Greening of the Range has been one of the most extensive projects of its kind in Australia, and it’s all been a voluntary community project.”

Harvey got angrier. “What about low-impact food production? Community vegetable gardens? Trying to re-establish the native foods that once grew there? Getting the local unemployed and handicapped in to learn something wholesome?”

That’s the sort of talking that would have Trott smiling that inimitably curious smile of his, with its puzzled mixture of disbelief and delight.

“Dear Boy”, he would say.

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