DAVID Randall and his wife, Eliza, the subjects of my previous column, were neighbours of pioneer winegrower Joseph Gilbert in the Barossa Ranges. Gilbert, born in the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire, in 1800, decided to emigrate to South Australia after seeing an advertisement for a ship bound for the new colony. Arriving in Adelaide in 1839, he immediately started looking for land to accommodate the sheep he had ordered from Van Diemen's Land. He found what he was looking for between present-day Lyndoch and the Eden Valley area of the Barossa Valley, and called his new property Pewsey Vale, after his birthplace.
In 1841 or 1842 he planted his first vines, probably table grapes. By 1852 he had acquired cuttings from James and William Macarthur's vineyards at Camden in New South Wales, and also from the Horticultural Society's glasshouse collection at Chiswick in England. He had a disaster in November 1855, when all his vines were ruined by frost, and the whole vineyard had to be grafted with new cuttings. By 1857 the vineyard had considerably expanded.
There is some controversy over whether Gilbert made his first wine in 1847 or 1852. We know that in 1849 he employed Carl Sobels as winemaker and distiller, but this arrangement probably ended when a new Distilling Act was passed in 1851, and the still could not be used. At that time Gilbert probably took over his own winemaking. When journalist Ebenezer Ward visited Pewsey Vale in 1862 he reported an impressive list of grape varieties growing - no fewer than 18, including riesling, verdelho, shiraz and cabernet sauvignon.
Ward enthused over the wines. His favourite was the riesling, "thoroughly matured, fragrant, delicate and pure". He acknowledged that others would probably prefer the Pewsey Vale reds, made from shiraz and cabernet, "especially that of his earlier vintages, a wine that would fairly rival if not out vie the finest Burgundy". Is this mention of a wine made from cabernet and shiraz one of the earliest references to the classic Australian red blend? Ward described an example of a favourite game of the colonial winegrowers, when an 1854 Pewsey Vale riesling and "some choice Hock considered to be the best wine of its class ever imported to this colony" were tasted by "a number of gentlemen - all experienced connoisseurs". Of course, the Pewsey Vale was considered superior.
Joseph Gilbert's winegrowing achievements did not go unacknowledged. In 1867 the Commissioners of the Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition awarded him a medal "for the general excellence of his ... wines, and in recognition of his services and success as a vigneron". Gilbert was in distinguished company, with the other two medals being awarded to his grape suppliers, James and William Macarthur at Camden and Edward Peake of the Clarendon vineyard in the Adelaide Hills. And winegrower Thomas Hardy, writing in an Adelaide newspaper in 1878, described the Pewsey Vale riesling as being "nearer in type to the Rhine wine than any produced in the colony".
It was not just in Adelaide that the Pewsey Vale wines were acclaimed. They won many trophies and medals at Melbourne and Sydney shows as well as overseas. One fan was English physician Robert Druitt, who wrote occasionally on wine for the Medical Times and Gazette (London), and published two books based on these writings. In one of them, Report on the cheap wines from France..., published in London in 1873, he praised Pewsey Vale wines, having obtained samples from the leading London agent for Australian wines, PB Burgoyne. The verdelho Druitt described as "a light-coloured fragrant sweet wine" which showed great promise, particularly as a medicinal wine. An 1864 white "without evidence or suspicion of fortification" was "an example of the power of these wines , both in alcoholic strength and in vinous flavour", tasting like "a fine dry sherry - in saying which we pay a high compliment to dry sherry". An 1864 Pewsey Vale red Druitt considered "a fine mature wine, grapy and potent ... fit to rank with Hermitage".
In 1903 another South Australian journalist, Ernest Whitington, waxed lyrical: "Pewsey Vale has long been famous for its beautiful wines. They are not to be excelled in South Australia". Furthermore, he pointed out, Pewsey Vale was not only one of the oldest vineyards in South Australia, but also, at 1500 feet above sea level, one of the highest. By this time Pewsey Vale grew 29 acres of shiraz, cabernet and riesling, with the reds yielding 6000 gallons and the riesling 3000.
On Joseph's death in 1881, his only son William inherited Pewsey Vale, and expanded the vine plantings. William maintained his father's high standards, with Pewsey Vale wines being exhibited at Bordeaux in 1882 and 1895, as well as continuing their success at the Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney wine shows.