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Auldana Winery and Vineyard, adjacent to Magill, South Australia
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So the years continued, with expansion by the Company everywhere to keep pace with the grape production and, though such a tabloid account may indicate a joy ride on the crest of a wave of prosperity, this was far from being true in detail. During the years when Penfolds were buying and planting vineyards and installing costly plant, the world had been passing through a global war and a global depression. Keen and careful judgment, with vision capable of foreseeing in the years ahead the results of each step taken, was required to ensure that the Company would emerge stronger after each test, and not broken by the strain placed upon it. This was a work for which Frank Penfold Hyland was eminently fitted, and success attended his efforts. He had become notable among his colleagues within the industry - evidence of which had been his election as First President of The Federal Viticultural Council.
Meanwhile, countries in the East and West were burning their private fires of aggression which, in 1939, burst into the conflagration of the Second World War, and once again the first call on manpower and production was for defence. In this year Leslie Penfold Hyland died after a long illness and his elder son, Francis William, who succeeded him at Magill, died a few years later. His second and only surviving son, Jeffrey, was with the armed forces and, for the first time in almost a century, Magill carried on without the presence of a member of the family.
In 1942 Frank Penfold Hyland bought the vineyards of the Hunter Valley Distillery, near the Dalwood and Sparkling Vale properties. The intake from this vineyard, which in 1942 amounted to 33 tons, has since grown to more than 130 tons, principally Riesling, White Shiraz, Blanquette, Pineau, and Pedro Ximenes varieties. This purchase was followed in 1943 by the inclusion of Auldana vineyards and cellars in the Penfold group.
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Century old cellars at Auldana, South Australia
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Auldana, which adjoins Magill in South Australia, has a history as old as Penfolds. Thomas Auld and Dr. Christopher Rawson Penfold were neighbours, the former having bought Auldana as two sections of 230 acres in, 1842 at the usual price charged by the Crown of £1 an acre. He planted some small plots with vines and, upon his return from a visit to England in 1852, was so impressed with their growth that he decided to devote himself to wine growing. The vineyards were laid out and planting was started in 1854. In 1861 Thomas Auld floated a company known as the South Auldana Vineyard Association, with a capital of £12,000, and the Association's first vintage in 1862 yielded 3,000 gallons of red and white wine. In 1897 new cellars were built at the foot of the hill and the vineyard, under the skilled management of Edmond Mazure, a Frenchman, began to make the reputation it still holds to-day for its wines. The continental naivete' and ingenuity of this Frenchman provided for the protection of his harvest as well as the quality of his vintage, and in 1903 his neighbours must have been at first puzzled, then startled, to find Auldana equipped with windmills whirling kerosene tins on their vanes, inside which loose marbles kept up a racketing din -successfully reckoned to frighten the sparrows, wattle birds and starlings that swarmed the vineyards during the fruit ripening season. With the removal of the tins at the end of harvest time, part of the thanksgiving might well have been reserved for the return of peace, quiet, and birds to the sunny slopes!
At Auldana in the nineteenth century the wine was pressed in the method traditional since the days of the Greeks, by treading the grapes in wooden troughs. Six Italian workers, trained in the method in their own country, were employed for this work and foot baths were provided in which they were obliged to wash their feet before entering and after leaving the wine pressing trough.
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A Wine Press
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More than 100 acres remain under grapes at Auldana, including Mataro, Shiraz, Frontignac, Champagne, Doradilla, Grenache, Muscatel, and Hermitage varieties, and the winery is now used mainly for the processing of Champagne. The construction of the cellars is interesting, the stone columns and Norman arches lending a Continental air of age and grace in a style seldom seen in this young country. In 1945 Penfolds added two more properties to their group. These were the Modbury vineyards of 195 acres, a few miles north of Magill, which were bought in March, and the Kalimna estate which was owned by D. and J. Fowler Ltd., and acquired by Penfolds in May. The Modbury vineyards included old plantings of Pedro, Grenache and Doradilla grapes, and Penfolds have put down Grenache, Mataro, Muscat, and Pedro varieties.
The Kalimna estate is at Moppa in the Barossa Valley, only a few miles from Penfolds Nuriootpa Winery, and was taken over complete with vineyards, winery and distillery. The winery contained oak wood storage of the best quality for 100,000 gallons of wine. The vats, built at the beginning of the 20th century by one of South Australia's best known coopers, J. Keuper of Nuriootpa, were in perfect condition and were transferred to the Nuriootpa cellars, in conformity with the Penfold policy of centralised handling. Kalimna cellars are now used for the storage and maturation of wines, including a large quantity of sherry on flor. The vineyard is one of the largest in Australia and its total 900 acres include 263 acres of old vines of the Cabernet, Doradilla, Mataro and Shiraz varieties, and a large area of new plantings of Grenache, Hermitage, Palamino, Pedro, Riesling, Shiraz, and Madeira varieties.
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Stills at Nuriootpa, S.A
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The irrigation area around Griffith was producing increasingly large vintage harvests and in 1946 it was once again necessary for Penfolds to make additions to their winery and distillery, which now processes about 5,000 tons of grapes annually. The scheme has proved itself over the years and grapes are regarded in the area as the safest and most stable fruit crop, so far as marketing is concerned. For this happy position the vast marketing and distributing organisation controlled by Penfolds is largely responsible. Grapes grown in the area are mainly hardy vines of the Black Shiraz, Grenache, Riesling, Pedro, Gordo, Frontignac, and Doradilla varieties, from which are produced port, sweet and dry sherry, and muscat types of pleasing bouquet and flavour. The crop yield is high, Doradillas having produced more than sixteen tons to the acre, and Riesling eight tons to the acre. The highest production year at Griffith up to 1950 was 1941 when 21,654 tons were harvested. In 1948 the total area of full bearing wine grapes in the irrigation area was 3,775 acres, in addition to 500 acres of young plantings, and the value of the crop for that year was £213,000.
In 1948 the Company purchased Penfold Vale, in the Hunter Valley district of New South Wales, and planted it with more than fifty acres of white variety grapes, including Riesling from the Clare district of South Australia. In this year, also, the Matthews vineyard in the Hunter Valley, consisting of 15 1/2 acres of Riesling, was leased by Penfolds. The wines from Dalwood and these surrounding vineyards are usually sent to Minchinbury for champagne and Sydney cellars for light table wines.
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Nuriootpa Winery and Distillery, S.A
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Expansion of business also made further building necessary at Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley and two acres of land adjacent to the winery were purchased in 1948. To-day the buildings cover many acres and provide very extensive wood storage for maturing wines, one cellar alone containing more than 1,000,000 gallons of port, stored in 60 gallon hogsheads. In addition to the facilities provided by up-to-date machinery, spacious cellars and a railway that enters the winery enclosure itself, an efficient laboratory is in existence at Nuriootpa where the scientific staff keep a constant check on the welfare of wines at all stages of manufacture and maturation. At their Nuriootpa winery, Penfolds make sherries, ports and muscats.
The production of wine in its young state for Champagne and sparkling Burgundy is carried out at the Nuriootpa winery up to a certain stage, after which these wines are sent to Minchinbury and Auldana for completion. Brandy is also produced at the Nuriootpa winery, and it is interesting to note here that brandy is an important income earner for the Government. One ton of grapes processes into about thirty three proof gallons of brandy, and the duty on brandy is £2/13/6. Duty payable to the Excise Department on the wine, spirit and brandy held in stock at Nuriootpa represents many thousands of pounds annually.
The Governing Director, Frank Penfold Hyland, died in 1948, in his 75th year, after almost a half century of active control of Penfolds Wines Pty. Ltd., and was buried in the family graveyard at St. George's church, Magill, as were his father and brother before him. His death was a major blow to the whole wine industry of Australia, as well as to the Company which, by his tireless energy and sound administration, he had guided through good times and bad, always widening the field of its activities, always building anew on the solid foundations that had been steadily laid through a century of years.
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Vintage time
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Since the death of Frank Penfold Hyland, the Company has carried on under the guidance of a Board of Directors and, in the distributing cellars at York Street, Sydney - where James Downey is still employed after almost fifty years of service - the general growth that continues throughout the whole organisation is emphasised by the daily activity among the maze of stout oaken vats and casks, and the racks stacked, tier on tier, with bottles. This growth has caused a search for further fields in which to expand in comfort, and new cellars have been brought into commission at the Sydney suburb of Waterloo to augment the storage and handling of the wines in New South Wales. Meanwhile, at the York Street Head Office, the administrative staff attends to the demands of an ever increasing home market and an export trade that extends to most parts of the world.