What’s left? Low Calorie Confections and Fairy Floss
‘I get very passionate about whatever I am working on, I just like creating things and thinking about how they will impact a consumer’s life, creating growth plans and then watching them deliver.’ Michelle Terry, Lindemans’ current MD
We hear so much about Penfolds, the great Australian wine company that releases its icon and luxury range every year as if it were a famous Paris fashion collection. And every year, we read stories about the great Max Schubert who created Australia’s most iconic wine, which he did.
While Max helped build the foundations forPenfolds’ fame, there was an even brighter star in the southern sky, a company that could boast the equivalent of two Max Schuberts: Lindemans. One star was Karl Stockhausen at Ben Ean in the Hunter Valley, the other John Vickery down at Chateau Leonay in the Barossa. Karl made the greatest Hunter Semillons ever, and some great Hunter reds, while John Vickery was Australia’s undisputed Riesling Meister.
Corporate Raiders in the vineyards
By the mid sixties, Lindemans’ vineyard holdings stretched from the Hunter to Coonawarra, and from the Barossa to the Clare Valley. In the seventies, big business developed a taste for wine: Philip Morris bought Lindemans in 1972, and brewer Tooth & Co bought Penfolds in 1976. Perhaps Max Schubert saw what was coming, and handed over the job of Penfolds chief winemaker to Don Ditter the year before.
It didn’t take long before Tooth & Co began to flog off the farm for a fistful of dollars. In 1977, it was the Minchinbury vineyards and Wybong Estate in the Upper Hunter. In 1978, they shut down Penfolds’ Griffith winery; in 1980, they sold the Auldana vineyards; in 1982, it was the HVD Vineyard in the Hunter (to Tyrrell’s); in 1983, it was the turn of the historic vineyards around Magill.
Barbarians inside the gate
The core of Penfolds’ red winemaking in the Barossa survived somehow. Lindemans was less lucky. In 1973, Phillip Morris declared the old Ben Ean and Sunshine vineyards unprofitable, and flogged them off. These were the jewels in Lindemans’ Hunter Valley crown. ‘The great wines of the Hunter Valley quite literally withered on the vine,’ James Halliday writes in the Wine Companion.
That’s globalisation for you: the greatest vineyards in our Hunter Valley wiped out by the cost accountants of a US tobacco giant, at the stroke of a pen.
The profits went into building a new refinery at Karadoc near Mildura, the first step in the transformation of Lindemans from quality winemaker to bulk producer. Bin 65 Chardonnay was made at this winery, and by the late nineties had become one of Australia’s biggest wine exports.
In 1986, Philip Morris made its intentions even clearer when it by moved long term MD Ray Kidd to the chairman role and slotted Seven-Up’s European director into the MD’s job. By any standard, Ray Kidd had been a great if largely unknown captain of the good ship Lindemans. You can’t even find a photo of Ray on the web today. Born in Renmark in 1925, he joined Lindemans after the war and worked his way up to cellarmaster, chief winemaker and then chief executive.
Ray Kidd, the visionary
Ben Ean Moselle was Kidd’s brainchild. The wine had 20% of the white wine market in Australia in the seventies. Ray Kidd was also at the helm when Lindemans bought Leo Buring in 1961, and it was his idea to replant the Florita vineyard in Watervale to Riesling. Until then, one of Australia’s greatest Riesling vineyards was producing grapes for making Sherry.
Kidd bought Rouge Homme in 1965, and saw the potential of nearby Padthaway where Lindemans planted extensive vineyards in the seventies. Kidd also acquired the St George and Limestone Ridge vineyards in Coonawarra. In the eighties, the reds from these vineyards built serious reputations, along with the Pyrus Bordeaux blend. Sadly, the Jimmy Watson trophies they won were in effect the last hurrah for the once great company.
In 1990, Lindemans fell into the hands of Southcorp, joining Penfolds, Wynns and a dozen others in a vast graveyard of great Australian brands. A few years earlier, Adelaide Steamship had bought Tooth & Co who owned Penfolds, Kaiser Stuhl, Tulloch, Seaview, Wynns and Tollana. In 1990, S.A. Brewing (later renamed Southcorp), paid a mere $400 million for the wine business of Adelaide Steamship, and became Australia’s biggest winemaker with more than one third of the market.
The Classics
In the early seventies, the farsighted Ray Kidd had begun laying down some of Lindemans’ best wines in the cellars of the company’s Nyrang St, Auburn headquarters. Lindemans Nyrang Hermitage and Auburn Burgundy paid an interesting tribute to the company’s location and vast cellars. In the eighties, Lindemans began releasing some of these wines in regular tranches.
There were two levels of releases: Classic and Fine Aged Premium. The Classics were expensive but included the great Hunter Semillons and South Australian Rieslings of the late sixties and early seventies – that golden era which produced wines like none before or since. Here’s a later piece from Chris Shanahan on this topic, with more details.
The real bargains were found among the FAPs, though: I remember buying loads of a 1967 Hunter River Burgundy, a lovely soft red that had been eclipsed by its more muscly 1966 and 1965 siblings. To me, the 1967 was a classic Hunter Shiraz: soft, sweet and earthy, medium bodied and smooth, light on its feet yet perfectly balanced. We drank it over the next ten years, and every bottle was a delight.
The program was such a success that Ray Kidd wanted to expand the cellars at Auburn but the cost accountants at Philip Morris put an end to that idea. In 1986, they decided to move the cellars to Karadoc and just leave the offices at Auburn.
More here http://chrisshanahan.com/articles/1995/classics-from-a-great-cellar/
Karl Stockhausen, the accidental winemaker
Karl was a German accountant who emigrated to Australia in the fifties, and landed in a migrant camp in the Hunter Valley. He got a job at the Ben Ean Cellars, where he ended up working with Hans Mollenhauer, a German wine technologist Lindemans brought out to set up refrigerated pressure fermentation tanks for white wine making. Mollenhauer returned to Germany in 1959, and Karl was left to handle the 1960 vintage.
By the mid-sixties, Karl clearly had a decent grip on making Hunter whites and reds, and produced a run of classic wines until Philip Morris sold the farm from under him. In 1979, Karl was sent to Chateau Leonay to join John Vickery – we can only assume that there was nothing left for him to do in the Hunter Valley. A few years later, for reasons only known to chain-smoking cost accountants, Karl was sent to Sydney and made a product manager. Not long after that, Karl left and returned to the Hunter where he still consults to small wineries.
John Vickery, Riesling Meister
John was the winemaker at Chateau Leonay which Lindemans bought after Leo Buring’s death in 1961. He also hit a purple patch in the late sixties and early seventies but continued making great Rieslings after Philip Morris sold the last jewel in Lindemans’ crown: the Florita vineyard in the Clare Valley. The Barry family snapped it up and now makes a $50 Riesling from the great fruit it produces.
In 1986, Philip Morris sold Chateau Leonay, and John Vickery must have wondered if he too would be offered a marketing job at headquarters. We must remember that 1986 saw the height of the grape glut in South Australia, when growers were paid by the government to rip out vines …
When Lindemans was flogged off to Southcorp in 1990, chief winemaker Phil Laffer departed and joined Orlando-Wyndham, which had fallen into the clutches of French giant Pernod-Ricard. Here we see a great example of the kinds of miracles only globalisation can perform: in this case take an upper Hunter winery – Richmond Grove – and move it to Chateau Leonay in the Barossa , which Orlando had recently bought from Philip Morris.
Laffer hired John Vickery as a consultant to help make the wine here, and John was soon back in his element making great Rieslings mostly from bought in grapes. As more and more Aussie wines were spoilt by tainted corks, Vickery became a champion of the Stelvin cap which he introduced to Richmond Grove Rieslings in the late nineties. He retired in 2009.
Richmond Grove’s website currently offers most Watervale Rieslings from 1996 to 2011 for sale. The prices are a bit steep but it’s a rare opportunity to buy perfectly cellared wines. Another option is Dan Murphy, who offers some of these Rieslings via the Cellar Release program.
Southcorp, Fosters and the graveyard of once mighty brands
We’ve seen the scenario many times before: big companies gobble up little ones, followed by the usual PR fanfare of new investment and new energy and a bright future. A few years later, no one can remember why they bought the companies they bought. They’ve become estranged aunties and uncles who’ve taken up residence without invitation, are always in the way and refuse to leave.
Southcorp owned Penfold and Lindemans, once our two most prestigious winemakers. Someone at Southcorp saw the worth of Penfolds and took care of it, but no one seemed to care about Lindemans. Grange was a big part of the reason why Penfolds was taken care of, and so were the Bin reds with big reputations. Over time, the historical context was built around the Penfolds brand like a supporting scaffold.
By contrast, Lindemans began to resemble a city after a long siege. The victors had taken what they wanted and laid waste to the rest. Ben Ean was now a function venue, Leo Buring was just another lonely brand in the graveyard of Southcorp. A series of brand managers with no sense of history set about finishing the job. This is what’s left of Lindemans today:
The only links to Lindemans history are the Coonawarra and Hunter ‘trios’, fairly well hidden on the website. A fleeting gesture to former glory, to wines that are mere shadows of times long gone. Oh, I nearly forgot: there’s a full range of Bin Wines, with the old Bin 65 Chardonnay at the centre. Made at Karadoc, they sell for $7 or less.
From coffin nails to fairy tales
Eli Greenblat at the Sydney Morning Herald reports that new MD Michelle Terry ‘has big plans for Lindeman’s. On the cards is a launch in the US of its new Early Harvest label over the next 12 months, a new variety of wine that could be a big hit with people who like to watch their weight and their calories.’ The LIGHT theme is supported by a website that opens up to a bright garden where pretty leaves flutter by.
It comes as no surprise that Terry’s ‘working life has revolved around brands of some description, face creams, beer, gifts, homewares, she’s done it all – and now it’s wine.’ Greenblat tells us that Terry is also responsible for a handful of other TWE brands: Yellowglen, Great Western, Devil’s Lair, Fifth Leg and Rothbury. And that’s what all these things are: brands.
Here is what drives Terry: ‘I get very passionate about whatever I am working on, I just like creating things and thinking about how they will impact a consumer’s life, creating growth plans and then watching them deliver.’
When I read empty words like that, I get a hollow feeling in the pit my stomach, the same feeling I had when I read an interview with the wine manager at COSTCO who said wine was no different from toilet paper.
Eliza Lindeman and the Fairy Floss Factory
There’s a pathetic attempt to connect with Lindemans’ long and glorious past, but it’s fairy floss canned for an airhead audience. After a cursory glance, Terry must’ve decided that Eliza and her 10 children were the right story for her audience. The blurb on the label says: ‘Eliza’s Ten range is a tribute to the matriarch of the Lindeman family – Eliza Lindeman – who gave birth to ten children.’
The range is clearly designed for young things who like wines with pretty labels and potted fairy tales: ‘Hidden below the vineyard, Mary could sit where the water lilies met the vines and be interrupted by no one but the croaking frogs. She could escape her daily chores and with one stitch at a time work on the surprise for her mother, Eliza.’ We can only assume that the brand manager for the Early Harvest range came from designing cosmetics ads for Women’s Weekly.
Industry veteran David Farmer has written a pointed piece titled The Epitaph for Eliza Lindeman reads Became Skinny Girl. In it he asks: ‘Are the creators of this range serious? Among other things Eliza’s Ten shows disrespect for Eliza Lindeman and thus the heritage of the brand. The descriptions of her children are simply fanciful, and the silliness of the writing is an affront to the art of copywriting, and to the wine trade which expects better from the custodians of this famous history … It may be cruel to suggest but perhaps the writer should consider a future with Mills and Boon.’
History means nothing to them
As long as I live, breathe and drink wine, I will argue that wine is much more than a product or a brand. Wine is generations of men and women who tilled the soil in all kinds of weather, who planted vineyards in impossible places, built wineries from nothing and made wine for a fickle public. Wine is families that embraced the heritage, extended the vineyards and improved the breed. Wine is sweat, tears, sheer hard work, resilience, endurance, commitment and more.
The history of Lindemans is a long and glorious one, from a humble beginning in the 1840s when Dr Henry Lindeman planted the first vineyard at Cawarra near Gresford north of the Hunter Valley. To see what TWE has done to this wine company, and a brand that was once as strong as any competitor, is an insult to civilised wine drinkers across this country. Shame on you, and a pox on your houses!
Kim
