Vine cuttings from the Cape of
Good Hope were brought to the penal colony of New South Wales by
Governor Phillip on the First Fleet in 1788. An attempt at wine
making from these first vines failed, but with perseverance, other
settlers managed to successfully cultivate vines for winemaking, and
Australian made wine was available for sale domestically by the
1820s. Gregory Blaxland became the first person to export Australian
wine, and was the first winemaker to win an overseas award.
Vineyards were established in the Hunter Valley and in 1833 James
Busby returned from France and Spain with a serious selection of
grape varieties. Wine from the Adelaide Hills was sent to Queen
Victoria in 1844, but there is no evidence that she placed an order
as a result. The production and quality of Australian wine was much
improved by the arrival of free settlers from various parts of
Europe, who used their skills and knowledge to establish some of
Australia's premier wine regions. For example, emigrants from
Prussia in the mid 1850s were important in establishing South
Australia's Barossa Valley as a winemaking region.
Early on Australian winemakers
faced many difficulties. However, they persevered and slowly they
began to achieve greater success. At the 1873 Vienna Exhibition the
French judges, tasting blind, praised some wines from Victoria, but
withdrew in protest when the provenance of the wine was revealed, on
the grounds that wines of that quality must clearly be French.
Australian wines continued to win high honors in French
competitions. A Victorian Syrah (also called Shiraz) competing in
the 1878 Paris Exhibition was likened to Château Margaux and "its
taste completed its trinity of perfection. One Australian wine won a
gold medal "first class" at the 1882 Bordeaux International
Exhibition and another won a gold medal "against the world" at the
1889 Paris International Exhibition. Then began a period of
devastation for the Australian wine industry as the phylloxera
epidemic took hold. Since then, Australia has recovered and rapidly
become a world leader in both the quantity and quality of wines it
produces. For example, Australian wine exports to the US rose from
578,000 cases in 1990 to 20,000,000 cases in 2004 and in 2000 it
exported more wine than France to the UK for the first time in
history.
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