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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MAP OF THE GEOLOGY OF McLAREN VALE

COONAWARRA HAS NO COPYRIGHT ON LIMESTONE: EOCENE BLANCHE POINT AND TORTACHILLA LIMESTONE IN THE TUNNEL BELOW MAXWELL WINES

Leon Bignell's Speech  
The House Of Assembly
South Australian Parliament

by LEON BIGNELL, MEMBER FOR MAWSON, 21 July 2010

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:30): I rise today to inform the house of a new map that was released last week. It is a geological map that shows the different rock formations in the McLaren Vale region. Some of those rocks date back 1.6 billion years. It is very important for a winegrowing region to understand what is below the soil. In fact, there is a huge impact on wine, depending on what sort of rocks it is grown upon.

I would really like to congratulate Philip White, the wine critic, Jeffrey Olliver, PIRSA's geologist Wolfgang Priess and William Fairburn who, 35 years ago, when they were working together here in Adelaide and all very much interested in geology, came up with the idea of mapping South Australia's wine regions, their geological formations and their importance. It took a while and there were several years of no activity at all but, for these four guys, their dream became a reality last week. I would also like to thank PIRSA for its contribution in helping make this map a possibility.

There were more than 140 people at the Bocce Club at McLaren Vale for the launch of the map last week, showing just how important it is to the region. There are seven distinct terrains in the McLaren Vale wine region and, as I said, each of those has a very important impact on the taste of the wine, which is why people may have seen Philip White getting around in vineyards over recent years, licking rocks. It always looks a little strange, but he says that what you taste in the wine is what you taste in the rocks, and I will take Whitey's word for that.

REFLECTED IN WHITEY'S SHADES IS THE INTERFACE WHERE THE NEOPROTEROZOIC BEDROCK UNDELIES THE NORTH MASLIN SANDS AT THE CUTTING NEAR CHAPEL HILL: 700 MILLION YEARS OF GEOLOGY MISSING! photo KATE ELMES

Ms Bedford interjecting:

Mr BIGNELL: He is very dedicated, and he is also a very avid reader of Hansard, and I am sure that he will be reading this note of congratulation. We have also had another big week. I have come in here many times to talk about what a wonderful region McLaren Vale is. Two nights ago in Melbourne at the National Produce Awards, McLaren Vale was named by Delicious magazine the best region in Australia. This is what the judges had to say:

"With its mix of outstanding wineries and restaurants, great produce and a stunning coastline, South Australia's McLaren Vale was the natural choice as this year's winner. Being a wine region by the sea is definitely an advantage. The chefs here at places like Fino, Salopian Inn and Russell's really know how to make the most of the produce and seafood, and the Willunga Farmers Market is a highlight. There's a great synergy. It's one of the most active regions in the country for permaculture, and you see it at the market."

PARLIAMENTARY MEMBER FOR THE SEAT OF MAWSON, LEON BIGNELL, HELPING OUT IN DUDLEY BROWN'S INKWELL VINEYARD

Coming to the world of wine from deep beneath the flavoured ground
by PHILIP WHITE

When I was a kid, I lived in Kanmantoo, a copper mining town on the east side of the South Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia. I earned my pocket money working as a field assistant to various geologists and surveyors as they explored, drilled and mapped our region, searching for an el dorado.

After years of handling, cataloguing, archiving and assaying hard rock surface samples and drill cores, at a very young age I had developed a deep respect and basic understanding of the ancient tortured geology of my region.

I also developed a profound reverence for the science and practitioners of geology, quickly appreciating two of their quirks. The first was that geologists commonly taste rocks to help identify their nature. Depending on their composition, rocks have different flavours. Geologists lick rocks.

The second was that these remarkable people think in three dimensions. They learn to read the rock, and understand its intricate folds, rolls and layers deep beneath the Earth’s surface.

Once the great conical pit was dug at Kanmantoo (above), and one could stand in its depths, gazing over the mess of metamorphised hard rock in the faces reaching up for over two hundred metres to the surface, it was immediately obvious how thin and fickle the soil was.

Over all those three dimensional folds and curls of mighty rock, that epidermis of soil way above looked so frail, and inconsequential, and two-dimensional. Relatively, it had no depth.

MY BROTHER STEPHEN, ONE OF THE MINERS WHO DUG THE KANMANTOO PIT, IS STILL A HARDROCK UNDERGROUND MINER IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

It made me shiver to wonder what sustenance had fed the world famous Kanmantoo St George's Vineyard during its blaze of fame from the beginning of the colony to the Depression. Like what on Earth - or in Earth - had lent this Adelaide Hills wine such flavour that it won the gold medal for best red wine in the world at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889, celebrating the centenary of the French Revolution and the opening of the Eiffel Tower?

The secret is unfolding still. Many years later, whilst working on the McLaren Vale map, the formidable geologist, Wolfgang Priess, reinforced my suspicion about the thin frailty of soil when he murmured “Some geologists think soil is the dandruff of the Earth.”

We had been discussing my frustration with viticulturers and winemakers, and their obsession with dirt, rather than geology. Soil, I was joking, was only two-dimensional compared to geology, which had depth, and flavour.

DIAMOND DRILL BITS FOR DRILLING CORE SAMPLES FROM DEEP IN THE EARTH - SEE BELOW

I had worked on the same office floor as Wolf, back in the ’seventies, when I was lucky to be part of the Geological Survey Division of the South Australian Department of Mines and Energy. This was a time when this new thing called “the environment” was only just being discovered. South Australia had a visionary Premier, Don Dunstan, whose regime oversaw the beginnings of progressive environment management and a slow-down in actual mining, but an incredible acceleration and intensification of exploration and mapping. That Department had a great fleet of drilling rigs, probably the biggest assembled in Australia 'til then, and it had a higher percentage of scientists with doctorates and significant academic qualifications than any other.

The frisson of creativity and discovery there was exciting, addictive and hugely rewarding: nearly four decades later, ore bodies discovered during that intensive exploratory surge are still being exposed and mined. The Olympic Dam deposit on Roxby Downs is a good example.

They certainly fed me and my crew with plenty of drill cores and rock samples for cataloguing, sampling, boxing and storage in the new Core Library at Glenside. We had thousands of kilometres of drill core samples there for immediate retrieval, examination and further analysis. This was the best facility of its type on Earth, where we built one of South Australia's first computer databases, using COBOL and a skrillion punch cards. Maire Mannik (below) was the brilliant pioneering programmer.

Elsewhere on that busy head office floor worked Jeff Olliver, who was head of the non-metallic minerals section. And twenty feet from me was W. A. “Bill” Fairburn, the fastidious boffin who edited the constant flow of academic papers the Survey produced. I learned an astonishing amount, listening to years of Bill’s tenacious questioning of the authors of those papers. Those bright discussions covered every strange backwater of the vast realm of geological science.

Geologists are thirsty folk. Interminable swathes of time spent nose down in the desert builds up significant reserves of thirst, which take mighty city lunches to assuage, nose to the winestone. Supervisor of many of these was my boss, the legendary Bob Wildy. Red wine, and much of it, was compulsory. The regular comparison and discussion of wines from the various South Australian viticulture regions led invariably to posturings on their relative geology. But not very deeply.

Eventually, after a study tour of the geologies of the wine regions of France, Bill Fairburn came back and addressed the Geological Survey, suggesting that a formal attempt be made to properly map the wine regions.

Bill’s address was rather humourously regarded: when there was gold and uranium to be found, his suggestion seemed frivolous. No funding was provided. But last month, thirty two years after that meeting, the first map was published.

Soon after Bill’s speech, I had largely abandoned rocks and went off to pursue my freelance writing career in television, film and papers. But those epochs of geological thirst led quickly to the world of wine writing, which increasingly became the focus of my hopeless attempts at earning a living.

A Michael Dransfield poem from 1972 had first led to me consider the relationship between wine and country, and the writing it could unleash. “Taste it. Not bitter,” Michael wrote of an old Hunter Shiraz in Wine Tasting, “but with the dust of the outback prominent.” A decade later, I was in the Hunter Valley being lectured by that almighty rogue, Murray Tyrrell.

“Our reds start out like young Bordeaux,” he boasted to a group of tourists, “and they end up like beyoootiful Burgundies.” And then, staring at me, “and you can smell the brown coal coming up through them from the ground beneath.”

I had already formed a strong belief that any coal/bitumen/peat/lignite characters possessed by the wines of the Hunter reflected the hydrogen sulphide in the air above, an exudate of the filthy local coal mining industry, rather than a product of the deep alluvial geology covering its coal strata. Any other H2S I suspected came from McLaren Vale, which shipped enormous volumes of its bulk wine into the Hunter for consequent blending, disguising and packaging as Hunter wine. Vales wines were stacked with sulphide from bad winemaking in those days. The Hunter vignerons had rather politely changed its common name from “rotten egg gas” to “sweaty saddle”, giving rise to evocative images of bushrangers, horse rustlers, and cattle thieves, all stereotypes fully understood by the Tyrrells.

Peaty Vales aromas, however, were another puzzle; one which took me a further 28 years to solve.

Pardon this meandering.

THE FREAKY TERAZZO-LIKE GEOLOGY OF THE TALUS SLOPE AT MARIUS WINES ON THE WILLUNGA FAULTLINE, McLAREN VALE. THIS ROCK, FROM VARIOUS 600 MILLION YEAR PLUS SOURCES IN AN ANCIENT MOUNTAIN RANGE, HAS BEEN BROKEN AND MIXED AND WORKED AND REWORKED BY GLACIAL ACTIONS AND EXTREME RIVERINE ENERGY AND THEN KER-SPLOSHED INTO ITS CURRENT LOCATION IN THE KURRAJONG FORMATION.

Very early in my winewriting career, I began to taste the rocks and dirt of the many vineyards I visited. The viticulturer’s reaction was always disbelief and horror. To me, the disbelieving reaction was preferred. Horror usually indicated a farmer who’d sprayed so much poison on his ground that he thought I must surely die from ingesting his poisons. There are plenty of those extant, unfortunately. Monstano's Roundup comes to mind. And I still encounter winemakers and grapegrowers who surprise me by doubting that the water-soluble mineral flavourants in their soil could possibly influence the flavour of the water that their vine roots drink, and squeeze up and out into their berries.

Bill Fairburn corresponded with me irregularly during my twenty years writing wine on The Advertiser, the local metropolitan and state daily. He would enjoy setting me right when my geological posturing went awry, was always helpful when I encountered strange geologies on my endless vineyard treks, and often vented his frustration that he couldn’t get support from any winemakers for his map-making efforts. He would spend weekends and holidays in the field with his geological pick and notepad, mapping geology. McLaren Vale, and then the Barossa.

Botched, hurried versions of his work made it onto two government pamphlets in 2000. The lack of interest from the winemakers of both regions was deplorable. The owner of one trendy Barossa old-vine boutique whose vines Bill recognized to be dying of salinity from stupid irrigation regimes hissed “who gives a fuck about geology”, and sent him packing.

So Bill did pack. Packed right up and went back to Yorkshire to retire.

In 2008 I moved from Kanmantoo to McLaren Vale, where I discovered Jeff Olliver was living, growing grapes, and working as a consulting geologist. We immediately decided to pursue Bill’s work, and renew contact with him. This coincided with Dudley Brown, new chairman of the McLaren Vale Grape Wine And Tourism Association, visiting me to discuss the need for a map of the McLaren Vale Wine Region.

JEFF OLLIVER CUDDLES A PIECE OF FOSSILISED TREE TRUNK FROM BAKER GULLY, IN THE NORTH-EAST CORNER OF McLAREN VALE photo KATE ELMES

"Map?”, I said. “I can get you a map!” And I proceeded to tell him the long tale. Dudley's Association quickly set up a committee, chaired by Jock Harvey, his predecessor at the Association, and on we went. Bill paid his own fare back from York, where his retirement involved him rewriting the geology of a significant slice of north east England, and off we went.

Fortunately, Wolfgang Preiss was still working in the Geological Survey, where he is the senior geologist. So with his estimable assistance and peer approval, the four of us set about finalizing Bill’s work and getting the map published.

This involved some big help from the local member of parliament, Leon Bignell, and assistance from wine-loving cabinet minister, Patrick Conlon. Andrew Rowett of the Geological Survey was also an enormous help and facilitator.

Back-up work came from Bill’s friend Jo Thyer and Jeff’s wife Susan, whom he met away back in our Department days, and who was employed by the same geologist who gave me my job, the late Peter Dunlop.

The Geology Of The McLaren Vale Wine Region is now available from the McLaren Vale Visitor’s Centre, various Vales wineries, and the current version of the old Department of Mines, which is now part of Primary Industries And Resources, South Australia. Whose acronym, PIRSA, is a vast improvement on that of the department I quit all those years years ago, the South Australian Department of Mines and Energy.

THE AUTHOR ADDRESSING THE WINEMAKERS AND VITICULTURERS AT THE LAUNCH OF THE GEOLOGY OF THE McLAREN VALE WINE REGION MAP IN THE BOCCE CLUB, McLAREN VALE photo LEO DAVIS

McLAREN VALE - ITS GEOLOGY IN BRIEF

THE AUTHOR ON THE BEACH AT PORT WILLUNGA, BELOW THE FAMOUS STAR OF GREECE RESTAURANT. THE TOP LAYER IS THE VERY RECENT (PLEISTOCENE) NGALTINGA CLAY, A STICKY WATER-RETAINING FORMATION WHICH IS NOT IDEAL FOR VITICULTURE. NEXT LEVEL IS THE PALE BURNHAM LIMESTONE (2.6 MILLION YEARS), THEN THE CALCERIOUS FOSSILIFEROUS HALLET COVE SANDSTONE (JUST A LITTLE OLDER), AND THE YELLOW-BROWN PORT WILLUNGA FORMATION (23 MILLION YEARS) DIPPING GENTLY SOUTHWARD AT THE FOOT OF THE CLIFF. photo EMILY SHEPHERD ... to view the new map in medium res CLICK HERE

Orogenies, Effluvia and Exposures ... Uplifts, Disruptions and Faultlines ... Chaotic And Random Complexities
by PHILIP WHITE

The Universe is about 13.75 billion years old; the Earth about 4.54 billion.The best simple analogy – the key – to understanding the geology of our planet is to consider it as a pot of stew.

The simmering, molten liquor below is the Earth’s core and mantle, which together are about 6,300 kilometres deep, meaning it’s about that distance to the centre. The globs that form on the much cooler top of the stew gradually enlarge, shrink, dissolve, sink, oxidize, and constantly move about.

We live on this unstable floating crust, which varies from 5 to 75 kilometres thick.

The liquor in the stew of Earth is mainly molten nickel and iron. At the centre, the pressure is so intense that the metals cannot liquefy: there’s a solid metal ball there 2,600 kilometers in diameter. Surrounding that is the liquid part – the Outer Core and Mantle. This varies in fluidity, from quite liquid near the core, to plasticine closer to the crust.The core of the Earth rotates at a faster speed than its crust.

The oldest big rocks on Earth are suspected to the Nuvvuagittuq greenstones on the tundra on Hudson Bay, Canada. These are currently claimed to be 4.28 billion years of age. The oldest tiny rocks found on Earth are the particulate Western Australian zircons, at 4.36 billion years.

To put these vast ages in perspective, the alluvial sand of Uluru – Ayer’s Rock – was being deposited only about 550 million years ago. About 400 million years ago, it was being tilted ninety degrees to the vertical. During the last 300 million years it has been exposed and shaped to its current form.

ULURU - AYERS ROCK - THE GEOLOGICAL, FIGURATIVE, MYTHICAL AND SPIRITUAL NAVEL OF AUSTRALIA WAS BEING LAID DOWN AS SANDSTONE SEDIMENT ABOUT 550 MILLION YEARS AGO. BY THAT POINT IN HISTORY, ALL THE OLD ROCKS SURROUDING AND UNDERLYING McLAREN VALE HAD ALREADY BEEN FORMED. photo NT tOURISM

Australia

The key to understanding Australia is to consider relatively recent times, and commence our natural history about three-quarters of the way along.

Between 570 and 510 million years ago, two globs - East and West Gondwana - joined together, covering one side of the Earth from the Equator to the South Pole.

Almost a mirror-image, a similar sized glob, Laurasia, stretched from the Equator to the North Pole.

180 to 200 million years ago, Gondwana and Laurasia broke apart, and each drifted closer to its Pole.

About 150 million years ago, Gondwana began to break up. It has since broken into Antarctica, South America, Africa, Madagascar, Australia-New Guinea, New Zealand, Arabia, and the Indian subcontinent.

About 80 million years ago, Australia was separating from Antarctica, moving back towards India at about the speed at which your fingernails grow.

We witness the results of this with constant disruptions along the edges of the tectonic plates: in the earthquakes and volcanoes of New Zealand and Indonesia, as this giant slab of ancient rock pushes India north into old Laurasia, forcing the Himalayan mountains upwards.


McLAREN VALE: THE WILLUNGA EMBAYMENT, LOOKING SOUTH. THE PROMINENT RIDGE IN THE BACKGROUND IS THE WILLUNGA ESCARPMENT, FOLLOWING THE LINE OF THE WILLUNGA FAULT. IN THE FOREGROUND IS THE GORGE OF THE ONKAPARINGA, VAGUELY FOLLOWING THE OCHRE COVE-CLARENDON FAULT. THE ROCKS THIS SIDE OF THE ONKAPARINGA ARE FROM THE UMBERATANA GROUP, OLDER THAN 650 MILLION YEARS, AND THE OLD ROCKS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WILLUNGA FAULT STRETCH FROM 520 MILLION YEARS TO 1.6 BILLION. BETWEEN THE TWO, IN THE WILLUNGA EMBAYMENT SLUMP, ARE THE MARINE AND RIVERINE SEDIMENTS OF McLAREN VALE, ALL LAID DOWN DURING THE LAST 56 MILLION YEARS, . photo STACEY POTHOVEN

The Geology of McLaren Vale

McLaren Vale lies in the Willunga Embayment, a wedge-shaped depression between two ancient faultlines in rocks older than 500 million years.

After a great period of inactivity, about 56 million years ago, in the Eocene Epoch, these fault lines reactivated, and the old Neoproterozoic rocks between them subsided, forming an embayment into which younger sediments began to wash down from the mountains to the east, and in from the ocean to the west and south.

These two localized faults are the Ochre Cove-Clarendon Faultline to the north, and the Willunga Faultline to the east.

The western side of the triangle is bordered by the sea: the Gulf St. Vincent.

BOTTOM THIRD OF THE MAP. THE BLACK DOTTED LINE TRANSVERSING THE IMAGE IS THE WILLUNGA FAULTLINE, WHICH MARKS THE WILLUNGA ESCARPMENT. THE ROCKS TO THE SOUTH-EAST OF THIS, IN THE MOUNT LOFTY RANGES, ARE ALL OLDER THAN 520 MILLION YEARS, AND STRETCH BACK TO 1.6 BILLION. THE YOUNGER SEDIMENTARY LAYERS TO THE NORTH WEST, IN THE WILLUNGA EMBAYMENT, ARE ALL YOUNGER THAN 56 MILLION YEARS. ALL VINEYARDS, ROADS, WINERIES AND VILLAGES ARE SHOWN. THE KEY TO THE YOUNGER ROCKS IS IN THE TOP LEFT HAND CORNER OF THE SHEET.

The principal riverine sands to descend from the ancient Mount Lofty Ranges to the east are called the Maslin Sands. These underlie all of the Willunga Embayment. At their deepest, before they disappear beneath the Gulf at Maslin Beach, they have been intersected by water bores more than 300 metres below the surface. They are covered with more recent marine sediments, so they are not oxidized, and at depth remain loose and sandy enough to scoop up for building materials. Where they tilt to the surface, in the north-east corner of the Embayment, they are oxidized, and, in places, have turned to sandstone. As water rich in iron has invaded their interface with the younger sediments and sands above them, ironstone has formed.

About 40 million years ago, the sea moved in to fill the Gulf St Vincent, which stretched as far as Leigh Creek, on the western flank of the Flinders Ranges. On its shallows thickly-vegetated swamps developed. In some places, these have become brown coal.

LOOKING SOUTH-EAST ACROSS McLAREN VALE TOWARD THE WILLUNGA ESCARPMENT, FORMED WHEN THE LAND THIS SIDE OF THE FAULTLINE THERE SLUMPED, TO BE REFILLED WITH SANDS FROM THE RANGES WHICH ONCE TOWERED BEYOND, AND VARIOUS LAYERED SEDIMENTS FROM THE OCEAN, OUT OF FRAME TO THE RIGHT photo MILTON WORDLEY.

For 25 million years this Tertiary ocean covered the Nullarbor, the Mallee and the South East of South Australia. Hundreds of metres of mud, fossils, and lime were deposited.

15 million years back, the sea retreated, only to invade again five million years ago, this time depositing sand and marine clay on the Adelaide Plains, the Mallee and the Limestone Coast. These sands and clays formed the aquifers of Adelaide, Willunga and Noarlunga, which now contain mainly fresh water.

There are two aquifers in the Willunga Embayment. These fill with fresh water which flows in creeks down from the ranges and the escarpment. When these creeks reach the Willunga Fault, much of their water disappears underground into that buried fissure, to refill the aquifers, pushing the brackish water back out beneath the Gulf.

About 2.5 million years ago the most recent major ice age commenced. The polar ice caps grew very large, taking up much of the planet’s water. 60,000 years ago, when the icecaps were enormous, the waterline was 120 kilometres distant. One could walk to Kangaroo Island. The gulf was a vast marshy plain with the River Vincent flowing down its centre, bringing south more sands, gravels and clays. Giant marsupials grazed here.

As the ice caps expanded and contracted, the sea repeatedly came and went, laying down various clearly delineated sequences of marine sediment. When it retreated, cold, windy, desert conditions prevailed, during which windblown silts were laid down, and lines of sand dunes were left. The reefs below the water off Port Noarlunga are remnant dunes from these times.

Other sediments washed down from the Mount Lofty Ranges to the east, across the Willunga Faultline into the Embayment, and on into the Gulf St. Vincent.

Over the millennia, various uplifts, disruptions and erosional effects have exposed these riverine and marine sedimentary sequences in an apparently chaotic and random manner, making the surface geology very complex, varying from one site to another.

GEOLOGIST JEFF OLLIVER AND THE AUTHOR EXAMINING THE UNCONFORMITY IN THE CUTTING NEAR CHAPEL HILL. THE RED NORTH MASLIN SANDS (50-56 MILLION YEARS) SIT DIRECTLY ATOP THE PALE BURRA GROUP (OLDER THAN 750 MILLION YEARS). THERE ARE 700 MILLION YEARS MISSING. photo KATE ELMES

The Geology Of Yangarra Estate

Yangarra’s geology is sedimentary.

Yangarra lies against the foot of the Willunga Escarpment on the Willunga Faultline near the eastern extreme of the Willunga Embayment, further from the Gulf than any other major McLaren Vale vineyard.

Yangarra’s sediments were deposited by streams flowing east-west from the Ranges down to the Gulf, and not by the west-east intrusions of the ocean which filled much of the Embayment. They are riverine, not marine.

THE AUTHOR AT AN OLD IRONSTONE PIT AT YANGARRA. HE IS INDICATING THE 600 MILLION YEARS PLUS BEDROCK BELOW THE GRAVELLY, QUARTZY, 50 MILLION YEARS PLUS NORTH MASLIN SAND BY HIS KNUCKLES - AN UNCONFORMITY. THIS IS THE ONLY KNOWN EXPOSED EXAMPLE OF THIS OVERLAY AND THE 500 MILLION OR SO YEARS OF GEOLOGY WHICH IS QUITE SIMPLY MISSING. IT'S NOT THERE photo- KATE ELMES 

The major geological formation below Yangarra is a thick layer of North Maslin Sand. This was washed down during the Eocene Epoch (34-56 million years ago), across the fault, from the very ancient sandstones (up to 1.6 billion years old) of the Mount Lofty Ranges. Twenty-five kilometers to the west, on the coast near Maslins Beach, this same yellow, orange, red and brown sand is mined for use as construction and decorative sand.

In those 150 metre deep pits, where the sands are not oxidized, they are still loose and easily dug by machines.

But where the North Maslin Sand tilts upward to the surface at Yangarra, it's exposed to oxygen and weather, which has turned it to stone. The penetration of iron-rich water over the millennia has converted much of this cap to ironstone. There are ironstone ridges running north-south through the vineyard, growing fruit of great intensity and strength.

The North Maslin Sand reaches its north-easterly extreme beyond Baker Gully about five kilometres north east of Yangarra. Here, this thinning iron-cemented sandstone lies directly atop the very old meta-sediment of the Neoproterozoic Burra Group, which is older than 750 million years. In the roadcut on Chapel Hill Road, one can place a finger on the unconformity where 700 million years of geology is simply missing. The older Neoproterozoic rocks were deposited before Gondwana had formed and moved itself to the South Pole, away back when multi-cellular life was only just beginning.

1946 VINTAGE GRENACHE BUSH VINES IN THE SEMAPHORE SANDS OF THE HIGH SANDS VINEYARD IN THE RECORD HEAT BLITZ OF 2009. THE NEW YANGARRA ORGANIC VITICULTURAL REGIME NOW ENSURES THAT NO SAND REMAINS BARE OF GRASSES AND HERBS, WHICH WILL DRAMATICALLY REDUCE REFLECTED HEAT DAMAGE WHENEVER ANOTHER HEATWAVE OF SUCH VICIOUSNESS OCCURS photo PHILIP WHITE

At Yangarra’s western extreme, where the North Maslin Sand begins to plunge gently to the coast, an overlying clay layer has formed. This is covered by a dune of aeolian, or wind-blown Semaphore sand, blown here in the last 10,000 years. Although it was not deposited by the sea, the Yangarra crew humorously call it The Beach.

In contrast, at the eastern side of the vineyard, along the faultline below the range, the thinning North Maslin Sand is covered in bits of quartzite and rounded riverine siltstones and sandstones in loose sand and clay, depending on when it was washed down, and from where.

This alluvial fruitcake, collectively called the Kurrajong Formation, was broken by water and ice from the 750+ million years old Burra Group formations which once towered mightily in the mountains to the east of the faultline.

It was dumped during the Pleistocene (10,000 – 2.6 million years ago), when glacial action, and vast meltings, were repeating widespread.

Interestingly, these rounded riverine stones and glacial pebbles are thick in the free-draining sandy soil beneath the Yangarra Roussanne vineyard. These rocks are similar to the galets – the rounded riverine and glacial stones – transported from the Alps and deposited about two million years ago in the Northern Rhone around Hermitage. These galets are highly regarded by Rhone Roussanne makers.

PETER'S CREEK IS A MERE TRICKLE AS IT FLOWS THROUGH THE YANGARRA FARMHOUSE FRONT GARDEN. FIFTY MILLION YEARS BACK, IT'S GIANT FOREBEAR WAS A CONDUIT FOR MASSIVE EFFLUVIA, USING ENORMOUS ENERGY TO WASH NORTH MASLIN SANDS AND GLACIAL DROPSTONES FROM THE CARBONIFEROUS-PERMIAN ONTO THE BASE OF THE WILLUNGA EMBAYMENT photo PHILIP WHITE

Peter’s Creek flows through the front garden of the old Yangarra farmhouse. Upstream, across the fault at the crest of the escarpment, lies a discrete formation of geology from the middle of that 700 million year gap visible in the cut on the ironstone knoll. This is a basin from the Carboniferous-Permian period, about 300 million years ago. All the other geology from that gap is still missing. This incidence is freaky.

To add complexity, this formation is peppered with dropstones. These are stones from great distances away, which have been picked up by glacial ice, to be deposited as dropstones when and where the ice melts.

It will involve more forensic geological work, but this rare incidence of the Carboniferous-Permian may explain the peaty aroma of some of the local wines which grow along the ridges and north in Baker Gully where the North Maslin Sands are close enough to the surface to be near the vine roots. The Carboniferous-Permian is the epoch of mighty coal and peat swamps; in this formation most of the world’s oil shale and oil reside.

The aroma could also come from the lesser bituminous formations laid down 40 million years ago. To the north of Yangarra in Baker Gully there’s a quarry which shows an exposed bituminous layer; above and nearby is a field from which vineyard ripping has drawn up chunks of fossilized timber. These fossils appear to be coniferous in type: they resemble native pine, or even Huon Pine.

Although vine roots cannot absorb oil, the aroma of this bituminous layer would readily penetrate the clay and sand above, to influence the flavour of the water tapped by the vine roots.

It is this amazing complexity, with fragments of stones from so many eras and locations mixed with those that have actually formed on site, that makes Yangarra Estate’s suite of vineyards so unique.

Now the ground work has been done, further geological forensics will help uncover more detail, and more keys to the secrets of the beautiful flavours that this complex, fascinating geology delivers.

PETRIFIED CONIFER TIMBER FROM BAKER GULLY. THE SHINY SPECKS ARE QUARTZ. THIS COULD WELL HAVE BEEN WASHED DOWN PETER'S CREEK IN A MAJOR EFFLUVIUM.photo PHILIP WHITE