By Dr Bryce C Rankine AM FTSE
Formal wine research sponsored jointly by the Australian wine industry and the Federal Government started at the Waite Agricultural Research Institute of the University of Adelaide in Urrbrae, South Australia, in 1934. To understand how and why this came about we must briefly review earlier history.
Wine exports to the UK
From 1854 there was a continuous record of Australian wine being exported to the United Kingdom. Up to the end of 1924 practically all exports were dry table wines. Higher duties, on top of the costs of production and shipping, would not permit fortified wines (with added alcohol and usually sweet) to be sold against the competition from Portugal and Spain. In addition, the use of the words ‘Port’, ‘Sherry’ and ‘Madeira’ were denied to wines exported by Australian producers since the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1916 and a similar arrangement with Spain, in which their use was restricted in the United Kingdom to wines from Portugal, Spain and Madeira respectively.
In 1924 the Australian Government passed the Wine Export Bounty Act. This was intended to assist ex-servicemen who had planted vineyards after World War I, by helping them to level up the costs of production and shipping to compare with those of European countries so much closer to the British market. On top of the Australian Government’s action, in 1925 a system of preferential tariff (known as Empire Preference) was introduced in the United Kingdom, with a 50% margin of preference, for a period of ten years. This gave Australia two-fold assistance and proved to be a tremendous help to Australian wine exports to the UK, which was by far the main export market, and greatly encouraged the export trade in fortified wines.
In order to secure the maximum benefit of the bounty, which in September 1927 was reduced from 2/9d to 1/9d per gallon, many young sweet fortified wines were exported. As a result, bonded stocks in the United Kingdom increased beyond the needs of the existing markets and large quantities of wine were left uncared for in bond in London for long periods. On removal from bond many parcels of wine proved to be unsound and had to be destroyed. The effect of this on the wine trade between Australia and the UK was both extremely damaging and cumulative until at least 1934. This was the origin of the interest in the problem and concern of the newly formed (1929) Australian Wine Overseas Marketing Board.
Beginning of wine research
One of the early actions of the Board (which a short time later became the Australian Wine Board and in 1980 the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation) was to set up an inquiry into this ‘disease’ of fortified wine, in conjunction with the University of Adelaide. Since little was known about the nature of the problem in oenological literature, the Board in conjunction with the University decided to ‘conduct a research’ into the question of diseases of sweet fortified wines, in order to cure them and prevent their re-occurrence.
The Board advertised for a research officer to conduct this research, and in November 1934 Mr J C M Fornachon (born in Adelaide in 1905 with a Swiss father), a graduate from Roseworthy Agricultural College and the University of Adelaide, was appointed. Fornachon was initially located at the University in North Terrace, Adelaide, (paradoxically in the Department of Human Pathology under Professor J B Cleland) but then in February 1935 was transferred to the Department of Agricultural Chemistry at the Waite Agricultural Research Institute under its director, Professor J A Prescott. The funds for this appointment were jointly provided by the Board and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, to become CSIRO in 1949). This was the beginning of formal wine research in Australia and was to continue at the Waite Institute until 1958, a total of 24 years.
Fornachon worked by himself in a difficult microbiological field. The causative agents of this sweet wine disease, as it came to be known, were found to be lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus species), which, although having sufficiently high alcohol tolerance to grow in such alcoholic wines, had very demanding growth requirements in laboratory culture necessary for their study. Spoilage was most marked at relatively high pH values (above 4.0), and the spoilage organisms needed accessory food factors (later identified as vitamins) likely derived from the autolysis of yeast, a process that occurred when wine was left too long on its yeast deposit.
This was in the very early days of industrial microbiology and Fornachon, working alone, took some months even to devise suitable culture media on which these perverse bacteria would grow. Now such media can be purchased over the counter. To give an insight into the difficulties facing Fornachon, a famous American researcher working on dairy lactobacilli later stated that the lactic acid bacteria were the most difficult and perverse organisms that he had ever encountered.
Fornachon proved to be a diligent, practical and persevering scientist and he eventually solved the problem of bacterial spoilage, an achievement that had eluded the investigators in Europe. After nine years his monograph Bacterial Spoilage of Fortified Wine, published by the Australian Wine Board in 1943, became a classic in pioneering research and of tremendous benefit to the wine industry. In fact, the Chairman of the Board reported publicly at the time that ‘If the Wine Board had done nothing but the investigation into the spoilage of sweet wine, it would have more than justified its existence’.
In 1938 the Federal Viticultural Council (formed in 1918) began to take an interest in promoting the section of Oenological Investigations and urged that its control should be transferred from the University of Adelaide to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research to put it on a national basis. To encourage the investigations it was further suggested that the Trustees of the Science and Industry Endowment Fund make an overseas training scholarship available.
The Trustees agreed with this proposal and applications were sought for the scholarship. Fornachon was the successful (and logical) applicant and travelled to the University of California to work with the top scientists in this field. During his absence, arrangements were made for the Adelaide University to continue its responsibilities for the work until his return. Mr F H Hooper was appointed in May 1938 to take part in the investigations during Fornachon’s absence, and he continued until August 1940. Fornachon, on his return, visited Roseworthy Agricultural College weekly to give a course of lectures in wine microbiology to the winemaking students, giving them the latest information which would greatly help them in the future. He remained an officer of the University until 1945 when he was transferred to CSIR – later the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) – which continued to contribute financially equally with the Australian Wine Board to the investigations.
Formation of CSIRO Oenological Investigations
In 1945 Fornachon became Officer-in-Charge of the CSIR Section of Oenological Investigations, which arose out of the research unit originally formed by the Australian Wine Board in 1934. This Section was controlled by a small Council made up of representatives of the Australian Wine Board (Leslie Salter), Federal Viticultural Council (Colin Haselgrove), the University of Adelaide (Professor Prescott) and CSIRO (as it became in 1949), under the chairmanship of Professor Prescott. Fornachon was joined in 1949 by his first assistant Mr W J Joklic who resigned within a year, following by Bryce Rankine who was appointed in March 5 1950. They shared the services of a laboratory assistant (Nadia Bressler) who was appointed in 1948.
By this time Fornachon had become involved in problems associated with the production of flor sherry, then an important product of the Australian wine industry and one with considerable production problems. In 1953 his second book, Studies on the Sherry Flor, was published by the Australian Wine Board in an identical format to that of his earlier monograph.
Formation of the Australian Wine Research Institute
At this stage it is necessary to refer to another historical development to understand the background of how the small section of CSIRO Oenological Investigations developed into the Australian Wine Research Institute, and remained associated with the Waite Institute. In 1930 the Wine Export Encouragement Trust Account was established, to which a part of the excise charges on fortifying spirit paid by wine producers, was credited. From these accumulated funds the amounts due for bounty on wine exports were paid. In 1947 the payment of the Wine Bounty was discontinued, and from the balance a special Trust Account was established, holding a reserve of £500,000 to be available for ten years, after which any surplus would be transferred to general revenue.
In 1949, an application by the industry to use £300,000 of this fund for advertising was (wisely) refused, but in 1951 the industry sought successfully to have the money devoted to the establishment and maintenance of an Institute to conduct research into matters associated with winemaking and grapegrowing, and with projects in which both aspects were involved. The Australian Wine Board in 1952 called a meeting of interested organisations, including State Departments of Agriculture, to suggest and discuss proposals for research.
In May 1955, the Wine Export Bounty Act was repealed, and the funds held in the Wine Industry Assistance Account were made available for the benefit of the new Australian Wine Research Institute. The new Act enabling this was proclaimed on 31 May 1955. The Institute was registered on 27 April 1955 under the Company Laws of South Australia as a private company limited by guarantee and not having a share capital. Of the original £500,000 set aside in 1947, £100,000 was made available by the Minister for capital expenditure. The Australian Wine Board was also to pay to the Institute a sum not exceeding £4,000 per annum. Part of the funds was claimed for grapegrowers by the SA State Department of Agriculture, and these paid the salary of the newly appointed State viticulturist (Mr E W Boehm) for 1957.
The Foundation Council of the new Institute was formed on 23 June 1955, comprising the Chairman of the Australian Wine Board (Ken Hardy), two Board members (Ron Haselgrove and Ian Seppelt), CSIRO (Dr H C Forster), a nominee of the Minister for Trade and Customs (J G Lyon), and three persons having knowledge of the scientific aspects of the functions of the Institute. The three were Professor J A Prescott, Colin Haselgrove and Michael Auld, the latter becoming the foundation Chairman of the Council. He was succeeded by Ron Haselgrove in 1958 and Colin Haselgrove in 1961.
On 1 July 1956 the Institute was formed, and Fornachon was appointed the foundation Director of Research with Rankine as his research officer. Effectively, both transferred from CSIRO to this new private industrial research organisation under the same CSIRO terms and conditions as formerly. Laboratories and a pilot winery for the new Institute were planned and built on vacant land directly east across Waite Road from the Waite Institute, and were the first buildings on this land that is now fully built on. The University of Adelaide had given this land to the Institute on a peppercorn rental for 100 years, and, surprisingly, at Auld’s request, with right of renewal. Construction of the laboratories began in 1957. Later that year Rankine was sent overseas on a study tour to the United States, Europe and South Africa, returning in 1958. The laboratories and pilot winery were opened on 28 March 1958 by the Federal Minister for Defence (Sir Philip McBride).
In 1958 Fornachon initiated a far-reaching joint investigation by the staff of the new Institute with the co-operation of the SA State Department of Agriculture and the CSIRO Division of Mathematical Statistics. Its purpose was to investigate the influence of grape variety, climate and soil on grape composition and on the composition and quality of table wines. Many empirical opinions existed around the world on this complex subject but few facts, and the purpose of this long-term project was to scientifically study this key topic in world winemaking for the first time.
The work involved the Institute’s new experimental winery and included three important grape varieties - Riesling, Semillon and Shiraz - grown in three different climatic locations and on several very different soil types in South Australia. The climates and soils of each location were measured carefully and wines were made in triplicate under controlled conditions for some years, so that the results could be evaluated statistically. This project involved many thousands of analyses of grapes and wines, as well as critical tastings, and yielded valuable results, the three most critical being that the grape variety was found to have the most significant influence on wine quality, with climate next in importance and last and least important being soil type. The paper reporting the results appeared in 1971 and is still quoted in world oenological literature.
Fornachon occupied a key role in wine research from its inception in late 1934 until his death in office on 25 August 1968 at the age of 63 years. He thus spent 33 years in pioneering wine research, and clearly was an icon in the industry. He continued active personal research up to the time of his death, publishing a series of important papers on wine microbiology including malolactic fermentation, a field in which he became an international leader. The John Fornachon Memorial Library, associated with the Australian Wine Research Institute and now housed in the new Waite Institute Library, was an appropriate and durable memorial to his contributions. As Valmai Hankel, formerly of the SA State Library, wrote on the 20th anniversary of his death, ‘It is time that the work that Fornachon did for over 30 years, and its relevance to today’s winemakers and wine consumers, is once more accorded the eminence and wide dissemination it deserves’.
During the writer’s time at the Institute (1956-78), the research and experimental staff increased with the appointments of Michael Mintcheff (1958-59), Jamie Sobels (1958-61), George Kolar (1959-61), Charles Hale (1962-67), Chris Somers (1962-90), Ashleigh Ratcliffe (1966), Ken Pocock (1967-present), Guntis Ziemelis (1967-83), Waldie Forrest (1970-82), Chris Strauss (1971-86), Des Connell (1971-73), Paul Monk (1972-1986), Michael Evans (1972-83), Andrew Hood (1973-77), Bob Simpson (1974-94) and Pat Williams (1974-96).
At this stage a brief personal comment may be in order. I worked closely with Fornachon for 28 years, and he had a profound influence on me and my attitude to both wine and science generally. As a man, he was very tall (6 feet 4 inches), thin, with a distinctive craggy face, curly hair and glasses; a shy, quiet and patient man with a ready sense of humour and tremendous scientific integrity. Even after all these years, I still miss him.
Institute expansion and graduate student involvement
Fornachon was succeeded as Director of the Australian Wine Research Institute by Waldie Forrest (1970–1982) and then by Terry Lee (1983-1997). Advances in the Institute’s programs were related to the increased availability of funds, which enabled the Institute to increase its staff, the kinds of investigations it was able to undertake, and its relationship with other teaching and research bodies on the Waite campus. At the time of writing the Institute has now produced nearly 700 papers on a wide range of topics (when Rankine left in 1978 the figure was 169), and has become formally associated with the University of Adelaide.
This association permitted the involvement of many graduate students proceeding to higher degrees, together with a professorial appointment for the director. The link with the University of Adelaide was formalised when Lee was appointed the foundation Affiliate Professor of Oenology in the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences. The extension role of the Institute likewise increased to include more regular visits by staff members to winegrowing areas. The present director, Professor Peter Høj, was appointed in 1997 and already has made valuable contributions.
Association with Roseworthy Agricultural College
Mention should be made of the long wine association between the Waite Institute and Roseworthy Agricultural College, the site of the famous oenology course that commenced in 1936. In 1992 the College was absorbed into the University of Adelaide, and the grape and wine courses were transferred to the Waite campus. In this connection, the name of Alan R Hickinbotham deserves mention, since this is perpetuated by the imposing Hickinbotham-Roseworthy Wine Science Laboratory in the new grape and wine teaching and research centre on the campus.
Although not involved with the Waite Institute, Hickinbotham occupied an important place at Roseworthy College (1929-1948), and was recognised as contributing with the Principal Dr Alan Callaghan to the creation of the Diploma Course in Oenology. During his time at Roseworthy he and his students made contributions to oenology in their undergraduate projects, and he published his Seasonal and Winemaking Notes in the industry trade journal (The Australian Wine Brewing and Spirit Review) regularly for some years. The Wine Science Laboratory was instigated and largely financed by his son Alan D Hickinbotham.
A further interesting development in the long-term association between the Waite Institute and Roseworthy came when Rankine accepted appointment to Roseworthy College in 1978 as Head of the School of Oenology and Viticulture, spending the next nine years there before retiring at the end of 1986. I found there excellent staff, and the interaction between teaching, research, extension and involvement with students (who really wanted to learn) was tremendously stimulating. The course eventually became recognised internationally as one of the best three in the world.
Viticultural research
In the early days the emphasis was clearly on oenological research over viticultural studies. This was deliberate because of the necessity to solve the pressing (no pun intended) wine quality problems outlined above. However, viticultural research developed later (at Roseworthy College, the University of Adelaide and other centres) and has contributed greatly to the development of the Australian wine industry. One significant feature relating to the Waite Institute has been formal recognition of the important work of Dr Bryan Coombe over many years in viticultural teaching and research. This has been acknowledged by a plaque recently placed near the vineyard immediately west of the Waite Institute main building, and reflects much credit both on Bryan and viticultural teaching and research.
Conclusion
Creation of the Garden of Discovery in the grounds of the Waite Institute near Peter Waite’s old mansion (now referred to as the ‘Urrbrae House Historic Precinct Gardens’) to perpetuate the early pioneers, is an important development in the historical perspective of this place. The curator, Dr Jennifer Gardner, and her colleagues deserve our collective support, because memories are short and people forget. The early Waite Institute had some clearly outstanding researchers at a time when they were greatly needed to help solve the agricultural problems of young Australia.
Among them was John Charles McLeod Fornachon. His role was small in the overall compass of the Waite Institute but its significance to the youthful Australian wine industry was enormous. To many grapegrowers and winemakers of the time, the Waite Institute meant essentially wine and solving their problems. As such, J C M Fornachon deserves a place in the Garden of Discovery, and it is a privilege to prepare and present this brief record in his memory.
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