McLAREN VALE AT WAR WITH GHETTO GOVT

GOING: DAVID PAXTON IN HIS GATEWAY VINEYARD OVERLOOKING THE SPARKLING GULF St VINCENT, THE PATRON SAINT OF VITICULTURERS, THIS VINEYARD IS QUITE LITERALLY THE OPENING TO THE McLAREN VALE WINE DISTRICT. THE HILL BEHIND PAXTON IS WHERE THE LOCAL ONKAPARINGA COUNCIL HAS CONSPIRED TO DUMP AN INTENSIVE MULTI-STOREY DORMITORY SUBURB SURROUNDED BY A "BIG BOX" LIGHT INDUSTRIAL "EMPLOYMENT ZONE" photo KATE ELMES

Council Shafts Winemakers Abandons Planning Pledges Here Comes The Ghettoby PHILIP WHITE
This July article was the first to report the treacherous situation at Seaford Heights. Since this, intense lobbying saw the Council backflip on its approval, Mayor Rosenberg castigate Council for spoiling her plan, and the Labor Party government ministers obfuscate and bullshit about whose plan it was and how the backflip will forever hurt development in the region, et cetera, ad infinitim ... In the meantime, government is intent on continuing with the development. An update on the situation will be published here soon.

Here's the original story:


McLaren Vale has had enough.

Three years ago, Lorraine Rosenberg, Mayor of Onkaparinga, launched Trott’s View, the late Greg Trott’s weighty conservationist tome about what and whom he loved and feared in his beloved McLaren Vale.

Rosenberg spoke precisely and brightly about a new era of council-community co-operation: a new environmental morality. Trott could now lie straight in his grave.

This speech was a shock: when Rosenberg was the Liberal Member for Kaurna in the Olsen government, she ruled as if no hillside was nice without colourbond.

Late last week, Vales winemakers discovered it was the end of the ten days Rosenberg’s Council had given them to peruse and comment on a tasteless development many years in the planning.

One can hear Trott roaring from the Strout Road cemetery. He died believing he’d secured a solemn vow from government: no more villa rash east of South Road.

GOING: GLENTHORNE FARM ON McLAREN VALE'S NORTHERN BORDER ... CURRENTLY IN LIMBO AS THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE, WHICH WAS GIVEN THE LAND FOR VITICULTURAL RESEARCH, FAILED IN ITS RECENT ATTEMPT AT LUCRATIVE SUBDIVISION, BUT CONTINUES TO FAIL TO KEEP THE SOLEMN PLEDGES IT MADE IN THE DEED IN SPITE OF PRECISE INSTRUCTION FROM THE PREMIER THAT THE DEED SHOULD BE HONOURED photo LEO DAVIS

The 1,700 new houses of Seaford Heights will be east of South Road, bang on the entrance to McLaren Vale, opposite Paxtons’ prestigious Gateway Vineyard. These vines grow some of the district’s best fruit. Trott had been scheming to hang a giant bell on that hilltop, to peal every morning at eleven. Tasting time.

For McLaren Vale, the location couldn’t be worse. David Paxton is livid.

“McLaren Vale is striving for world wide recognition as a first-class wine region,” he fumed. “Do you think the French would build a housing estate on the edge of Burgundy?”

The new suburb is opposite his vineyard, bordered by Main South Road, Wheaton Road, Ostrich Farm Road and Victor Harbor Road: a tagger’s paradise of eave-to-eave dormitoria, industrial “big box” sheds and colourbond fences. Its name alone should enrage creative sprayers. How can you have a ford on the sea in the heights?

The plan ridicules the long-term conservation and development promises the Rann Labor government devised before it dribbled in at the election.

The Labor Member for Mawson, Leon Bignell, is suddenly under a spotlight he wishes would pop. He works hard for the winemakers; his angry opposition to Constellation Wines’ destruction of John Reynell’s 1839 vineyard helped get him re-elected with an increased majority.

Seaford Heights also ridicules the November 2008 assurance of Planning Minister Paul Holloway.

“Because the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale are important economic areas of the state,” he promised on ABC radio, “because they’re wine regions, also significant tourism regions, it would not make sense to have urban encroachment to a significant extent into those areas.

“So we’ll avoid those areas and the areas that we’ll be looking at for future expansion are those areas where there’ll be less impact on the important tourism and economic areas ... it’s simple common sense: why would you want to encroach on areas that are important to the economy … Clearly that would be put at threat if we allowed rampant urban development within those areas.”


GONE: JOHN REYNELL'S 162 YEAR OLD VINEYARD ... LOST TO INTENSIVE GHETTO SUBDVISION EARLIER THIS YEAR AS CONSTELLATION WINES, COUNCIL AND GOVERNMENT DIDDLED HISTORY AND HERITAGE WITH SOME VERY SWIFT BACKROOM DODGES photo KATE ELMES
 We heard a lot more of that from Premier Mike Rann before the election.

“The McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism Association represents approximately 500 grape growers, wineries and tourism operators,” said its chairman Dudley Brown in his last-minute submission to Council, “with combined revenues exceeding $800 million per annum ... the single largest group of employers, landholders, ratepayers and tourism attractions in the City of Onkaparinga ...

“The Seaford Heights development plan and amendment goes to great lengths to discuss how ‘integrated’ it is with the 30 Year Plan for Adelaide and the Council's own plans,” he writes, “but seems entirely divorced from the economic reality and planning needs of its neighbouring communities … [It is] a very poor reflection of the Council's regard for its most successful worldwide brand and economic backbone ... and is likely to haunt the region for many decades to come.”

This belated rage is accompanied by many good suggestions about how to make the new burb look better, indicating to some that the Association has already thrown in its towel because the development deal was done before the newest restrictions were imposed.

The Association kept schtum when the Rann government, Rosenberg’s Council and Constellation Wines willfully destroyed the famous Chateau Reynella vineyard. Some Barossa winemakers equate that to replacing the Hill of Grace with slums.

Speaking of really dumb names, perhaps it was envy that kept the McLVGW&TA silent when the Onkaparinga Council recently began an official rebranding of its plant and properties: Onka is the new word. Parri means river. Onka means women.

Ponkepurringa, Unkaparinga, Ingangkiparri, Unkerparingga, Ngangki-parri, Ngangki-parri-unga … Onkaparinga was where the Kaurna secured their women and kids when invaders came to steal ceremonial ochre, and savage wars were fought. It meant “the place of the women’s river”, or “women’s place by their river”.

That old parri, with its deep protective ravines, still flows by, just a spear’s throw from Seaford Bloody Heights. But todays’ attack comes from within: from the only council on Earth with WOMEN painted on its garbage trucks.

“These pages are dedicated to all who live within this beautiful and bounteous region,” Trott wrote in the book Rosenberg launched, “trusting that they will always remain guardians of its heritage and will plant its future carefully and sensitively, while forever maintaining a level of sympathetic creativity.”

NEXT: HAVING BOUGHT THESE VINEYARDS AT MANY TIMES THEIR CURRENT VALUE, THE KARIDIS DEVELOPMENT GROUP WANTS TO REPLACE THESE HISTORIC VINEYARDS ON THE SOUTHERN BOUNDARY OF THE McLAREN VALE TOWNSHIP WITH OVER A THOUSAND UNITS FOR THE ELDERLY. photo KATE ELMES

LETTER OF RESPONSE FROM THE MAYOR

I was intrigued by ‘McLaren Vale tempers boil over villa rash’ (Independent Weekly, 16 July) with its selective and unbalanced reporting. The article failed to indicate the State Government’s primary role in the development of the land at Seaford Heights. This site has been earmarked for housing since 1962 and zoned as residential since the late 1980s. The State Government’s Land Management Corporation owned the land until 2008 when it contracted to sell half of it to Fairmont Homes. The City of Onkaparinga had no role in this sale. It must also be noted that the State Government has set SA’s population growth targets, which Council must adhere to.

Had I been given the opportunity to comment in the article, I would have explained that Council is trying to achieve the best outcomes for the region regarding Seaford Heights. This is through involvement in a Development Plan Amendment, which seeks to reduce future demand for urban expansion. As it stands, the new landowners could apply for development approval under existing rules, which we believe would exacerbate urban sprawl. I also wish to comment on the sexist remarks towards the end of the article, which add absolutely nothing to the content.

City of Onkaparinga Mayor Lorraine Rosenberg


Speech to Onkaparinga Council - 15 Septemberby Dudley Brown, Chairman of the McLaren Vale Grape Wine And Tourism Association

(This speech was critical in council's backflip over its plan: local government elections are in November, and the strength of the anti-development lobby saw council vote against its own plan. So now we lobby the state Labor ministers!) 
 
I would like to make the first of a few extraordinary claims tonight.

The first is that this beautiful new map on the wall is the finest geology map of any wine region in the world. Each of the different colors represents a different geological formation between 2 million and a nearly a billion years old in our region. Each of these imparts different flavors to grapes and creates diversity that most regions dream about.

My second claim is that this very unique geology is the foundation of what makes the McLaren Wale wine region so special on the world stage.

My third claim is that your decision regarding Seaford Heights is not a decision of local importance. It is of international importance.

Whether you know it or not, there are wine journalists and bloggers and consumers and wine tourists worldwide watching what happens tonight.

There’s an old saying in politics that where you stand depends on where you sit.

As Councillors from all parts of the city and as grape growers, winemakers and tourism operators in the McLaren vale wine region, we typically sit in different places.

However, in decision-making, we all try address the same three things: facts, context and process. I would like the council to respectfully consider all three from where our 500 members sit.

First the facts:

The McLaren Vale wine region’s borders are recognized by international treaty to be roughly contiguous with the borders of the City of Onkaparinga. Like you, we represent the entire city of Onkaparinga and not just the town of McLaren Vale.
Part of our charter is to maintain and preserve the rural amenity of our region for future generations to enjoy.

The grape industry of McLaren Vale contributes average annual revenues of approximately $80 million to the local economy. It employs sustainably managed and renewable water for over 95% of its irrigation needs while employing over 700 people on a full-time basis. Another 300-500 people are engaged as a second source of income and many more on a contract or part time basis.

The wine industry of McLaren Vale accounts for over 10% of the national wine output by value, employs over 2000 people full time and contributes $700 million per year in revenues.
The tourism industry of the McLaren Vale area just within the Willunga Basin contributes $160 million per year to the local economy comprising over 240 different tourism businesses in accommodation, food, wine, arts, transportation and other areas.

Any conservative multiplier would suggest that our industries support another 3000 jobs locally and another 3000 across the state.

McLaren Vale is consistently recognized by key media such as Australian Gourmet Traveler and Delicious as the number one wine and food region in Australia.

It has the #1 regional restaurant in Australia at Fino, it is the #1 region in Australia for local produce, the home of the best wine list in South Australia at the Victory, the host of Australia’s richest landscape art prize and the most valuable vineyard land in Australia.

THE SOUTHERN HALF OF THE McLAREN VALE VIGNOBLE IN THE WILLUNGA EMBAYMENT, LOOKING SOUTH. THE ONKAPARINGA GORGE IN THE FOREGROUND DISSECTS THE DISTRICT: THE NORTHERN HALF OF ITS AREA OF THE BEST OLD GEOLOGY FOR VITICULTURE HAS ALREADY DISAPPEARED BENEATH THE HOUSING YOU CAN SEE APPROACHING IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT - photo STACEY POTHOVEN

Now some context and a few more facts:

When the planning decisions for the proposed Seaford Heights suburb were made between the 1960’s and early last decade, the McLaren Vale wine industry was:

a) Spread out with many vineyards in the northern half of the current City of Onkaparinga

b) Much less intensive in nature relative to other crops

b) Less than 10% of its current size economically

c) Insignificant in terms of tourism

Since that time, a large portion of the historic viticultural areas in the northern part of the city have been developed for suburban development with the oldest vineyard in Australia bulldozed with this Council’s acquiescence at Reynella last year.

PART OF THE NORTHERN HALF OF THE McLAREN VALE VIGNOBLE, SHOWING NEW HOUSING SURROUNDING CHATEAU REYNELLA, WHICH IS OWNED BY CONSTELLATION WINES. JOHN REYNELL'S ORIGINAL 163 YEAR OLD VINEYARD IS CIRCLED. CONSTELLATION, WITH THE CONNIVANCE OF STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS REPLACED THIS PRICELESS HERITAGE ITEM WITH GHETTO EARLIER THIS YEAR.

At the same time, the southern part of the region has been much more intensively planted to vines. This part of the city is now, by far, the most intensively planted wine region (relative to other crops) in Australia.

The result has been an economic explosion of wine production and tourism in the region. McLaren Vale now accounts for: 25% of state grape and wine production by value, the highest per litre price for exports of any region in Australia, the highest total value exports of any wine region in Australia, the most successful job creator relative to water and grape inputs of any wine region in Australia and is the largest contributor to tourism of any SA region outside of Adelaide.

Moreover, as McLaren Vale is the highest cost region in SA for wine production, the economy is increasingly dependent on tourism and cellar door visitation as a path to profitability. Evidence of this is that cellar door numbers in the region have expanded from about thirty ten years ago to over eighty at present. This success story has evolved despite major wine companies withdrawing over 50% of their grape consumption and production from our high cost region over the past decade.

The result of this adaptive response to adversity is a wonderful and diverse set of tourism experiences that enable visitors to return many times and always have new experiences available to them. This is the exact type of organic economic development that state and local governments should be protecting and promoting rather than threatening with unsuitable development.

No other industry or area located in the City of Onkaparinga can list so many “best in Australia” gongs. None of this was true ten or twenty or thirty years ago when plans were originally made for Seaford Heights.


The Seaford Heights development is located at the entrance to the gateways to the tourism regions of McLaren Vale, the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island. The land adjoins the beginning of the vineyards of the town of McLaren Vale on the Victor Harbor Road and the open spaces of South Road. It is the point where suburbia fades away and the holiday experience begins for more people than any other region in South Australia.

Any development that occurs here should be designed from the context of the site’s importance as a place of transition from the suburbs to a major wine and food tourism region not as an extension of the suburbs.

Further, the site should also leverage the assets and possibilities presented by its proximity to an international airport for tourists, the city of Adelaide, major universities, one of the most economically important wine regions in Australia, a two-way freeway and a reliable supply of reclaimed water. Aside from the freeway, the current plan for this site ignores all of these assets.

For this reason alone, the Council should reject the current DPA as a hasty and inappropriate outcome for the entire region.

My final really big claim is that this site is the viticultural equivalent of Olympic Dam.

The 650 million year old exposed geology of the land in question is possibly the most important and valuable unplanted site for viticulture in the world.

How do we know this? Because

1) the PIRSA geologists who mapped this site are some of the best in the world

2) this map tells us how old the geology at this site is and

3) old rocks produce great wines.


The only place where there is an exposed geology of at least 650 million years old in the entire world of viticulture is in pockets of the Greenock area in the Barossa and the Polish Hill area in Clare Valley. Vines in these areas have produced more perfect wine scores ever received in Australia many times over that of any other area of Australia combined. Even McLaren Vale.

There is nowhere else with geology this old or of this size exposed in a suitable viticulture area anywhere in the world.

Despite this information being available from PIRSA, the DPA’s brief section on soil and geology section simply says that the site has gray brown loams suitable for foundations and gardens.

For this reason alone, the Council should reject the current DPA as a hasty and inappropriate outcome for the entire region.

Serendipitously, there is also an ample supply of reclaimed water for irrigation located directly across the Victor Harbor Road. If this parcel was developed as agricultural land, effluent to the sea could be reduced by as much as 800 million litres per year or 20% of the total remaining outflow of pollutants into the Gulf. This is not mentioned anywhere in the planning documents either. How can a Council that is a partner in the $120 million dollar waterproofing the south strategy that supplies this water not know this or mention it in a DPA?

The process employed by the City with regard to the planning and public consultation about the Seaford Heights Development has been badly flawed.

Released on 13 May 2010, the Council’s DPA, listed those with whom the Council undertook to consult with on a statutory basis. It also committed to consult with “relevant community and business groups active within the City of Onkaparinga.”

At no point did the MVGWTA receive any formal or informal communication from the City regarding the consultation process for Seaford Heights.

We were completely unaware of this process until the 7th of July. Only on the 9th of July were we able to make our members aware of this situation. Submissions closed that day. As our Council and city staff did not consider us “relevant”, our members did not have the same opportunity to respond as other stakeholders.

How can the largest employer in the city that is acknowledged to be the best in Australia in so many ways, that contributes a billion dollars of year in revenues in the mostly highly taxed industry in Australia that also physically adjoins the property in question not considered ‘relevant’ by either staff or Council? “ We believe that this is more than an oversight.

The lack of relevance of McLaren Vale and the food and wine tourism economy of the region isn’t just confined to the DPA’s invitation list however.

In the many hundreds of pages of planning and research documents that I read - including the DPA - from surveys of job location and creation to zoning and building densities – nowhere did I find the words “McLaren Vale,” “wine and grape industry” or “tourism” anywhere.

Nowhere in the employment assessment did the research mention the words McLaren Vale or wine industry or tourism – it only looked north and west of Seaford Heights and to other industries like retail. It turns out we supposedly don’t have enough grocery stores despite there being two large ones around the corner with an empty parking lot.

Nowhere did I find any risk assessment of the impact on the $160 million per year tourism industry.

Nowhere did I find an assessment of the risk posed to an $800 million dollar per year grape and wine industry that depends on tourism for profitability.

Nowhere did I find any reference to the authoritative research of Kym Anderson from the University of Adelaide on the economic impact of Australian wine regions undertaken last year.

Nowhere did I find any assessment of the risk or impact posed to the locally owned Main Street merchants across the Willunga Basin by the proposed retail development at Seaford Heights.

Nowhere did I find any reference to the community consultation undertaken by the City in 2006 with McLaren Vale to regarding the maintenance of the rural amenity and character of our region.

In short, there was absolutely no consideration of the impact of this proposed development on our region or industries or alternative uses at any point in the planning and consultation process. The “oversights” in this DPA are entirely too many and too serious to be simply brushed off. Remarkably, the city conducted an appropriate community consultation process about the location of a Leopard tank in a park but not about a new suburb with the population the size of McLaren Vale.

For this reason alone, the Council should reject the current DPA as a hasty and inappropriate outcome for the city.

Tonight, we are asking for three things from the Council:

1) That you reject the recommendation to extend the DPA process until January 2011 as it can only result in tinkering with a fundamentally flawed plan that is inappropriate to the site in question and does not meet Council’s own objectives.

2) That you take a non-binding vote as to who on the Council supports or does not support this current DPA as it stands. You owe the voting public the respect of standing to be counted on this issue prior to the election.

3) That you vote to abandon the current DPA process altogether and that you inform the Minister that any new DPA for this site needs to be undertaken with the full involvement of the Council, the community and industries affected as part of a long term strategic plan for the Willunga Basin that includes the LMC sites at Aldinga, Bowering Hill and Sellick’s Beach.

While it is easy to blame the State or the developers or the staff for the squeeze you find yourself in tonight, you can put them all on notice that it is the elected officials of this City who take responsibility for well considered and appropriate outcomes for our beautiful region.

A lot more people than our members are watching your decision tonight. The world is watching.


Comments posted on original DRINKSTER publication:

Nigel: .

"The Onkaparinga is also my river. I can hear the waters when they run, (and remember, Phil, I am deaf.) It's that close to my office window. The Onkaparinga District Council was for so many years South Australia's second oldest local government body, formed just a few months after Mitcham. And then it was swallowed up in the Adelaide Hills Council when amalgamation came about. Gleefully and to our gutwrenching dismay, the southern areas snapped up our beautiful name. The local footy team still enjoys the nickname Onkas. Won't they be thrilled to read their names on the garbage trucks. And believe me, they're competitive. They don't pussyfoot around and play like onkas...." July 29, 2010 7:58 PM

Anonymous:

"This new villages should be for Cambo people who do weeding and pruning the picking for the wines." July 29, 2010 10:24 PM

McLoverAllMyLife:

"that's just nuts" July 31, 2010 9:18 PM

Grant:

"It seems to me that Biggles has lost site of the fact that it is a Labor government that he happens to be part of, that has changed the planning act which is allowing this unbridled destruction. He can't have it both ways. Clearly his voice in Caucus is not as loud as his voice in the public press." August 1, 2010 5:03 PM

Roger Wingco:

"why wasn't he at the meeting?" August 1, 2010 8:43 PM

Philip White:

"If you seek blame, you will get nowhere, because everybody shares the blame for this. Even the street directories have shown this land as a suburb for many years, and the entire community has sat back without wondering why or how. Some locals were tipped off a year ago that this was impending, and never made mention of it. So forget the blame, and get active, and show your anger. Get onto FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/WE-OPPOSE-SEAFORD-HEIGHTS/133760679996263?ref=ts and offer your support." August 3, 2010 8:51 AM

Anonymous:

"I hear the govt's offer of compromise is ratshit!" August 11, 2010 6:40 PM

Garbage Trucks For Sale:

"Wow nice land it was very environmentalist and beautiful place to live in." August 12, 2010 12:54 AM

Garbage Trucks For Sale:

"Nice land and very relaxing ambiance when taking vacation or lifetime resting." August 27, 2010 6:09 PM
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GOVAN'S GREATEST VICTORY

Victory Hotel publican Douglas Govan fondles his pot of gold at his Rudderless Vineyard behind his Victory Hotel on Sellicks Hill, McLaren Vale, South Australia. That's another view of the vineyard, above, with the Gulf St. Vincent in the background.

SPEECH for the OPENING of the NEW BAR AND CELLAR at the VICTORY HOTEL, Sunday 30th November 2008

by PHILIP WHITE

Thanks Douglas.

I’m going to talk awhile about the nature of names as much as those very special qualities which mark the nature of a successful public house.

Public houses are places people attend to enjoy indulgent luxuries and wickedness they cannot otherwise procure because they’re travelling – it’s too long; or luxuries and behaviours which would simply not be tolerated at home – it’s too hard.

Such naughtiness ranges from extreme gushings of bullshit to spilling stuff on the carpet, through, until recently, to burning holes in the carpet, to the more traditional outrage of using the carpet through friction to burn holes in elbows and knees while scorching the gluteus maximus muscles of somebody else.

Metaphorically, of course.

Given the economies of the day, the publican varyingly tolerates, facilitates, and even encourages such behaviours, and the cleverest among publicans are those which can routinely manage all three, whilst keeping a clean nose, and ensuring those customers, and sometimes also those regular customers’ partners in life, reoffend with impunity.

While beer has been popular for some 8000 years, we don’t know who first made its drinking something that should be supervised by publicans in public houses, but I’m sure it didn’t take long.

There are references to such establishments in Chinese literature several thousands of years back, but one of the earliest writings to make pubs sound rather fascinating to the young Philip White came from the Gospel According To Matthew. It was read to the congregation of the Presbyterians at Childers, in the mountains of east Victoria, by Philip’s Father, the president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, in about 1958.

And it referred to wine, not beer.

As if to prepare me for Shakespeare, who plied his thirty thousand word vocabulary at Stratford while the royal scribes across in London and Oxbridge were limited to five thousand as they worked on the King James Version of the Bible, my Father the preacher of course used that translation.

“But whereunto shall I liken this generation?” Jesus asks.

“It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows. And saying, ‘We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented’.

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He hath a devil!’.

“The son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners’.”

1,950 years later there was an essay competition.

“I won it with an entry under my own name”, Douglas Govan told me earlier this year.

“And I also came third with another entry under another name.

“With the winnings I bought a Sony amplifier. I had no speakers or anything. Just the amp. I’d turn it on and marvel at the little green light. There was a Japanese kid at school with big stereo headphones. He let me try them on and once I was in there – like wow! Stereo! Suddenly I understood. I got right into music. I got into some serious platter-spinning. The wheels of steel. Within a few years I was running nightclubs, and eventually made enough money to buy a pub.”

So Douglas has been here since 1989, doing renovations and rebuilds in brave, tasteful waves, which are directly relative, of course, to the numbers of sinners, apostles, and sons of gods he entertains here.

Before the mighty rebuild we celebrate today, Douglas’s last big spend was on three bed and breakfast establishments just up the hill. While these are highly convenient and polite, I think somewhere in there, back with the gamblers, Douglas should build a copy of the Great Bed Of Ware (see picture at bottom of this page), which at three metres by four in acreage, was famous for holding around twenty passengers at a time. In Billy the Shakespaw’s day this mighty cot resided in another great pub, the White Hart Inn in Hertfordshire, and the Bard referred to it in Twelfth Night, where Sir Andrew Aguecheek is urged to write down enough lies to fill a sheet 'big enough for the bed of Ware'.

Speaking of the gluteus maximus muscles, the surname Aguecheek reflects not on the bearer’s capacity to score carpetburns upon his arse, but is a slightly more polite version of quakebuttock, a popular term for the sweaty, quivering cowards of that day.

Built by Hertfordshire carpenter Jonas Fosbrooke in about 1590, the bed’s four grand posts are carved with the names of some of those lucky enough to have sailed in her. She went to The Saracen’s Head, another Ware inn, until 1870, and now lies restored but tragically unused in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Which brings us to another great pub, the Boar’s Head. As Christian beliefs overtook pagan customs in Europe, the presentation of a boar's head at Christmas came to symbolize the triumph of Christ over sin. So young Will Shakepaws appropriately named the favourite watering hole of that corpulent and profane reprobate Sir John Falstaff The Boar’s Head.

This pub was at Southwark, where, coincidentally, lived the German woodworkers who'd helped build the Great Bed Of Ware. The real Boar's Head had been owned by the warrior John Fastolf, who in hearty simile to the playwrite’s name Shake Spear, (which he often signed Shakes Paw – a walloper of one’s cods) became John Fall Staff, a character quite the opposite of John the Baptist, who neither ate nor drank but did carry a staff til Salome secured the falling of his head.

The Boar's Head Inn, outside the City of London's medieval walls on the northeast, had long been a venue for play-acting in previous decades, and Shakespeare easily modified it for use as the vehicle in which Head Bore, Fall Staff famously fell asleep, drunk.

In Richard IV, Falstaff’s there drinking at two oclock in the morning with prince Henry.

enter BARDOLPH, running

"O, my lord, my lord! the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the door."

HOSTESS

"The sheriff and all the watch are at the door: they are come to search the house. Shall I let them in?"

It appears that the Sheriff’s looking for Falstaff over the little matter of a big stack of stolen money.

Prince Henry sends Falstaff to hide behind the arras, which, like denim, the characteristic cloth of Nimes - de Nimes - was an abbreviation for the rich tapestries and brocades made in the French town of Arras. The word came to refer to such tapestries, which usually bore heroic images of hunts or great battles, and which were hung in pubs to hide drafty unused doorways, annexes or snugs.

“Go, hide thee behind the arras”, the Prince tells Sir John.

As I’m talking about names, their meanings, and the way these change, Hardy’s or BRL or Galaxy or Heavens Above - or whoever they're currently called - that supplied this beautiful Tassie fizz we're gurgling should shout Douglas an arras as he now has the perfect location for one in his sumptuous new cellars.

Prince Henry assures the Sheriff that his quarry – as fat as butter – is not in the pub, so the sheriff leaves.

“This oily rascal is known as well as St Paul's” says the future king. “Go, call him forth”.

But Falstaff’s fast asleep behind the arras, snorting like a horse. They go through his pockets, looking for the money, but find only the day’s account from the pub.

Item, A capon (a chook),. . 2s. 2d.
Item, Sauce,. . . 4d.
Item, Sack (that’s sherry), two gallons, 5s. 8d.
Item, Anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d.
Item, Bread, a halfpenny.

“O monstrous!” yells the Prince. “but one half-penny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!"

Sir John drinks in many public houses, and handily repairs to one called The Garter Inn after having been thrown into the Thames.

“Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames?” he roars in the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. “Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't”.

In those days they served steaming hot sherry in large mugs, with a crouton or two floating on top. The sherry, which was yellow and sweet, and made before the invention of flor fino, was often so stinky and cloudy they also stirred in an egg or two to clarify it, much as we clarify consomme or indeed wines in barrel.

“Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold as if I’d swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in” Falstaff orders of the barmaid. But when Mistress Quickly arrives, he roars again “Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack finely”.

“With eggs, sir?” she asks.

“Simple of itself” he gurgles; “I'll have no pullet-sperm in my brewage”.

“A good sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it” Sir John trumpeted. “It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme: it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.”

A few hundred years later The South Australian in 1845 praised “the extensive and rich valley of McLaren … where almost the whole of the country inns visited on this trip are neatly and cleanly kept … everywhere the traveller meets with civility and attention … and there was no lack of good viands”. Going by the amount of sherry grape varieties then planted hereabouts, these abundant good viands must have included a fair potage of Sir John’s peculier petrol.

But this Victory was then not yet built.

I’d always thought, like hundreds of other pubs throughout the British Empire, that this establishment was named after the mighty vessel upon which Lord Nelson asked his mate Hardy for “a bit more tongue” then up and died.

I liked this possibility, because the Victory had been more successfully employed off the Portuguese coast in the battle of Cabo de São Vincente – Cape St Vincent - on 18 January, 1797, under Admiral Sir John Jervis, who thence took the title Lord St Vincent and became First Lord of The Admiralty, in which position he awarded passports to the French ships which sailed from his Channel to this coast, captained by Nicholas Baudin, under the sponsorship of Charles Pierre Claret, the Comte de Fleurieu, Senator, member of the Institute of France, former Minister of Marine, governor of the palate of Versailles, and intendant-general of Napoleon's household.

Baudin, of course, named this water Golfe Josephine, after Bonaparte’s mistress, unaware that by the time his charts got back to Paris Boney’d swapped Josephine for Marie Louise.

But before the French cartographers changed Baudin’s maps, Flinders named this glittering stretch of water St Vincent after his sponsor. It’s perchance that Baudin's maps reside in the Bibliotech, opposite Willy’s Wine Bar in the Rue Petit Champs in Paris. Henri Paul, the ex SAS man who drove Princess Diana to her death, drank, sometimes heavily, in Willy’s as he lived directly upstairs and always left his Mini Cooper S parked crooked on the footpath outside. Diana of course was a Spencer, and it was her ancestor, George John, the Second Earl Spencer and first Lord of the Admiralty, after whom Flinders named the other Gulf, which Baudin called Bonaparte.

It’s simply opportune that Vincent was not just the patron of viticulturers, but also of vinegar makers, lost stuff, and schoolgirls.

When Douglas named his wine brand Rudderless, he reinforced my naive belief that this Victory was named for Nelson’s vessel after its great Victory at the Cabo St Vincente, around which smart caravels for centuries carried sherris sack from Spain to the likes of Falstaff and the lads in The Boar’s Head, just as this gulf (St Vincent) and this cape (Cape Jervis - at the toe of The Fleurieu) see today’s enormous wine exports sail off for the public houses of London.

The names of Australian public houses often referred to things royal. If the King sought to go to war, he’d have to build a navy, so he planted Royal Oak, or Kingswood. The Great Eastern and Great Western hotels, of which Australia has many, were named after the biggest vessels of their day, both built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was the consultant engineer on the Goolwa – Victor Harbour railway, here on our beautiful Fleurieu Peninsula. The Exeter was named after that temple of enlightenment, Exeter Hall in London, where Wilberforce held his world-changing rallies against slavery, the first emancipationists met, and the meetings for the establishment of the South Australia Company were held. Rising Sun Hotels, which are everywhere, either face east or sit on eastern pavements. This pub, indeed, would make a perfect Rising Sun.

It took Chris Davies, of Willunga, to set me right about this Victory, and point out that the old coach road that passes outside here from Sellicks Hill to Pages Flat Road was originally named The Victory Road, not after any vessel, but after the victory of Aldinga Council Chairman John Norman who was instrumental in pushing this road through to Myponga and Yankalilla.

The ceremony to open the road was held on Tuesday, March 15th 1859 at this new inn, and at the celebratory dinner which ensued, this great public house was named Norman’s Victory in the hope that it would be a perpetual commemoration of the councillor’s achievement.

So, in the spirit of Sir John Falstaff, and his foremost Australian equivalent, the NSW Premier Sir John Robertson, who upon visiting these shores in 1860 drily observed

"None of the men who in this country have left footprints behind them have been cold water men",

I urge you to pack your pottles with sack, put a toast on it, and drink one to the gulf the Kaurna called Wongayerlo - the place where the sun disappears – and to all publicans and sinners, to Douglas Govan and his mighty Victory, where each day the sun arises, to all who sail in her, and in honest expectation that if Jesus came back today, the first thing he’d do would gather the lads up from their clambake down there on Galilee, and wander up the dusty Victory track for a few long loud ones in this beautiful new cellar and bar.

To the Victory!

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