The Thomas Hardy Trail - with his great great grandson Bill Hardy
With his feet firmly planted in the good earth of McLaren Vale, he reached for the sky - and nearly 150 years on, they still speak his name in London and New York. Let's raise a toast, then, to wine visionary Thomas Hardy and take a tour with his great-great-grandson, Bill Hardy.
We met him at Chateau Reynella. A half hour south of Adelaide, the Georgian style old stone cellars are now the corporate headquarters for BRL Hardy, the international wine company. Bill consults across the group in marketing and wine-making, and he is also the keeper of the family tradition.
On the lawns in front of the Reynell family homestead, he agreed this was a good place to start.
"Thomas Hardy came to Adelaide as a twenty-year-old immigrant from Devon with 30 pounds and a wooden box of possessions, and his first job was right here tending cows and vines for pioneer grape grower John Reynell".
A door in a long large mound nearby reveals a cavernous 1840s cellar that Thomas would have known well. It was a nice moment, therefore, when descendant Sir James Hardy was Chairman of Thomas Hardy and Sons and he bought Chateau Reynella into the business twenty years ago.
Today, the Reynella HQ is not just the pretty face of the empire that Thomas began. Up the rise, Bill Hardy showed us part of the massive hi-tech bottling plant that serves most of their Australian wineries.
"With all the lines going flat out, we do about 35,000 bottles per hour," noted Bill. Under acres of warehouse roof, we were boggled by the pallet-loads stacked high with labels familiar on both sides of the world - Nottage Hill, Tintara, Thomas Hardy, Sir James, Banrock Station, Stonehaven and several more.
It's a district spoken of in reverential tones by lovers of red wine. "McLaren Vale," they smile, and so the good Scottish Doctor Alexander Kelly was onto something when he planted his first vines here 140 years ago. On the trail of the legendary Thomas Hardy, Bill took us into Kelly's gully where he built the first "Tintara" Winery and made a red wine "fit for heroes".
"Some of the big names in the colony - Barr Smith, Elder and Davenport - were involved financially, but Kelly got into trouble getting his wine to London, and so Thomas bought him out in 1876."
Standing high on slabs of Willunga slate, we could see clear remains of the winery that was used for a half century. Some of the slate tanks were still intact, and on the flat below was a round tank-like red brick structure with its semi-hemispherical top still in place. As we wandered this historic site that's now on Bill's uncle's vineyard property, he filled us in on how old Thomas found his way into wine.
"He tried his luck in the Victorian gold rush, and made a quid overlanding cattle from near Yankallilla to feed the diggers. He bought "Bankside", on the Torrens River near Thebarton and developed a fruit, olive and wine company. Some say he was the first to export wine to the UK from there in 1857. Unfortunately, however, on a Saturday in 1905 a dreadful fire burned the whole place to the ground. They even tried pumping wine onto the flames. There were just a few 1500 gallon redgum casks saved, and they're still in use at Tintara."
That's where we next headed - to the "new" Tintara Winery in McLaren Vale. The old Mortlock flour mill on the main road served the region's first life as wheat country…until the soil was exhausted and vineyards saved the day. And Thomas Hardy in particular. Down amongst the giant old redgum vats, his descendant Bill Hardy took up the thread.
"He bought the defunct mill in 1878 and turned it into the winery that it remains to this day. He soon bought the Bellvue Hotel next door, too, and it is still in the company. Thomas came down weekly from Bankside and stayed there, and the story goes that there's still a clause in the hotelier's lease requiring a room to be kept for the Hardy family."
Tintara was a major winery by international standards in the nineteenth century, and within 40 years it was the biggest in Australia. I mentioned to Bill that one old label particularly appealed to me. " 'Tintara Ferruginous' referred to the local iron stone you can see in the old mill works," he explained. "Its input into the wine from here saw it recommended by doctors to their anaemic patients."
Bill directed us past modern stainless steel tanks for white wine storage and ancient basket-press crushers still used each vintage for premium red grapes from old Shiraz vines. In a corner of the old cellars, we came to a relic of Thomas Hardy's original Bankside winery. A great oak hog shed wore an elaborate carved front-piece with a crowning quotation in German. Bill translated.
"He who loves not wine, women and song Remains a fool his whole life long".
This Tintara winery that Thomas Hardy built is still very important to the international company that has lovingly absorbed his founding work. It is very much a second home to fifth generation Hardy, Bill, as he started here as a winemaker thirty years ago. Checking an infant red wine in the tank for colour, nose and taste - "This is very big!" ,he told us that this facility handles all the company's red and white grapes from McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills.
Over a coffee (true!) in the charming cellar door sales area of an old cottage in the garden that slopes from the road, Bill recalled the era when the "Tintara" brand was mainstream and his grandfather devised humorous slogans for advertising it, such as, "Drink Tintara - you'll never get better!" Looking at the labels for sale, it becomes obvious the name of the founder is still very much to the fore. In fact, Hardy named wines are the biggest seller of all Australian bottles into the UK, which explains BRL Hardy's title as Australian Exporter of the Year.
We paused by the John Dowie sculpted bust of the pioneer that stands where he supervised the grapes coming in during his many vintages of Tintara and mused that the 150th anniversary of his first vintage at Bankside is due in months. It is a huge legacy that he has left, and it was our great pleasure to have Bill Hardy share his passion and take us on the trail of the remarkable Thomas Hardy.
Details:
Hardy's Tintara Winery
202 Main Rd
McLaren Vale, SA, 5171Cellar Door:
ph. (08)8329 4124
Fax. (08)8329 4155
Web: www.hardys.com.au
