Tintara is an
Australian wine
The Australian wine industry is one of the world's largest exporters of wine, with approximately 800 million out of the 1.2 to 1.3 billion litres produced annually exported to overseas markets. The wine industry is a significant contributor ...
ry located in
McLaren Vale, South Australia
McLaren Vale is a town and locality in the Australian state of South Australia located about south of the Adelaide city centre and about south of the municipal seat at Noarlunga Centre.
History
The township was formed in 1923 from a merging ...
within the
McLaren Vale wine region. The winery was established in 1861 and incorporated in the 1862 as the Tintara Vineyard Company by Alexander Kelly, a medical physician and winemaker who wrote the early Australian
winemaking
Winemaking or vinification is the production of wine, starting with the selection of the fruit, its fermentation into alcohol, and the bottling of the finished liquid. The history of wine-making stretches over millennia. The science of wine and ...
and
viticultural
Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...
text ''Winegrowing in Australia'' and ''The Vine in Australia''. Several prominent figures in the early history of
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
and
McLaren Vale were initial investors in the winery including the founder of the
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on ...
,
Walter Watson Hughes, landowner
Samuel Davenport
Sir Samuel Davenport (5 March 1818 – 3 September 1906) was one of the early settlers of Australia and became a landowner and parliamentarian in South Australia.
Davenport was fourth son of George Davenport, a wealthy English banker, an ...
and politician
Thomas Elder
Sir Thomas Elder, (5 August 1818 – 6 March 1897), was a Scottish-Australian pastoralist, highly successful businessman, philanthropist, politician, race-horse owner and breeder, and public figure. Amongst many other things, he is notable fo ...
.
[J. Beeston ''"Concise History of Australian Wine"'' p. 74 Third Edition Allen & Unwin 2001 ] Today the winery holds the distinction of producing the oldest surviving bottle of Australian wine—an 1867 Tintara Vineyard
claret
Bordeaux wine ( oc, vin de Bordèu, french: vin de Bordeaux) is produced in the Bordeaux region of southwest France, around the city of Bordeaux, on the Garonne River. To the north of the city the Dordogne River joins the Garonne forming the b ...
. The Tintara wine earned the distinction when the previous record holder, an 1864 bottle of
Pewsey Vale Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon () is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Australia and British Columbia, Canada to Leban ...
, was accidentally broken by an office cleaner at
Christie's
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, t ...
auction house.
[G. Harding ''"A Wine Miscellany"'' p. 28, Clarkson Potter Publishing, New York 2005 ][AAP ']
Australia's oldest bottle of wine returns
'' Associated Australian Press, 24 February 2003[J. Halliday ']
The History of Shiraz in Australia
"'' ''The World of Fine Wine''Issue #20 p. 91 2008
History
Dr. Alexander Charles Kelly, MD
LRCS (5 June 1811 – 9 October 1877) was born in
Dunbar
Dunbar () is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately east of Edinburgh and from the English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Dunbar is a former royal burgh, and gave its name to an ec ...
, Scotland and qualified at Edinburgh in 1832.
He emigrated to South Australia aboard ''Baboo'', arriving in March 1840. In May 1841 he was appointed to the
Adelaide Hospital as honorary medical officer, then in 1846 was sent to London to lecture on emigration to the Colony, returning aboard ''
Lady Macnaghten
''Lady MacNaghten'' was an English barque of 553 tons, founded in 1825, which made numerous voyages to Australia, but remembered as the "Fever ship" for her 1837 voyage when one in six passengers died of illness either ''en route'' or shortly aft ...
'' in October 1847 and settled at Morphett Vale.
Being intrigued at the potential for grape growing in the McLaren Vale, he planted in 1845 the first vines in the area, naming the vineyard "Trinity". His medical practice now took a distant second place to his interest in viticulture and oenology.
In 1854 he married Annie Frances Worthington; their son John George Kelly (1859–1947) would become a noted winemaker.
In 1861 Kelly's book ''The Vine in Australia'' went on sale.
That same year he established Tintara winery, one of the first commercial wineries in the McLaren Vale area, and in 1862 founded Tintara Vineyard Company with prominent South Australian investors
Thomas Elder
Sir Thomas Elder, (5 August 1818 – 6 March 1897), was a Scottish-Australian pastoralist, highly successful businessman, philanthropist, politician, race-horse owner and breeder, and public figure. Amongst many other things, he is notable fo ...
,
Samuel Davenport
Sir Samuel Davenport (5 March 1818 – 3 September 1906) was one of the early settlers of Australia and became a landowner and parliamentarian in South Australia.
Davenport was fourth son of George Davenport, a wealthy English banker, an ...
and
Walter Hughes.
The initial planting included 210 acres (85 hectares) and was followed with a second wave of plantings in 1864. Among the
grape varieties
This list of grape varieties includes cultivated grapes, whether used for wine, or eating as a table grape, fresh or dried (raisin, currant, sultana). For a complete list of all grape species including those unimportant to agriculture, see Vit ...
planted were
Mataro (Mourvèdre),
Shiraz
Shiraz (; fa, شیراز, Širâz ) is the fifth-most-populous city of Iran and the capital of Fars Province, which has been historically known as Pars () and Persis. As of the 2016 national census, the population of the city was 1,565,572 ...
,
Grenache
Grenache () or Garnacha () is one of the most widely planted red wine grape varieties in the world.Niels Lillelund: ''Rhône-Vinene'' p. 25, JP Bøger – JP/Politikens Forlagshus A/S, 2004. . It ripens late, so it needs hot, dry conditi ...
and
Carignan
Carignan (also known as Mazuelo, Bovale Grande, Cariñena, Carinyena, Samsó, Carignane, and Carignano) is a red grape variety of Spanish origin that is more commonly found in French wine but is widely planted throughout the western Medite ...
.
In 1863 he sold "Trinity" to concentrate on the Tintara business.
Around 1871 Kelly entered into a three-year contract with
P. B. Burgoyne Peter Bond Burgoyne (11 February 1844 – 4 September 1929) was an English wine merchant, founder and head of P. B. Burgoyne and Co., Ltd., and Australian Wine Importers, Ltd. He has been called "the father of the Australian wine industry in Great B ...
, later extended another year, to take on the business of importing and bottling Tintara wines for the British market, working from offices and cellars at 50
Old Broad Street
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
*Old, Baranya, Hungary
*Old, Northamptonshire, England
* Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, M ...
.
Around August 1877
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wo ...
purchased the property and of wine from Kelly. He also purchased a nearby flour mill, with the intention of adapting it for wine production.
Around 1888 Thomas Hardy's company became
Thomas Hardy & Sons (later Hardy Wine Company, now part of the Accolade Wines portfolio).
Oldest surviving bottle of Australian wine
Tintara Winery is currently the producer of the oldest surviving bottle of Australia wine. The bottle, a
Bordeaux style blend labeled as a claret, dates back to the 1867
vintage
Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product—wine (see Harvest (wine)). A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In cer ...
. Its existence was previously unknown until it resurfaced in the 1970s. In 1977, the wine was sold to a private collector by
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
auction house.
In 2003 the Hardy Wine Company, owners of Tintara Winery and now in the Accolade Wines portfolio, purchased the bottle for an undisclosed five-figure sum.
It became the oldest bottle of Australian wine following the accidental destruction of the previous record holder, an 1864 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from Pewsey Vale.
That bottle was owned by winemaker and collector
Len Evans who purchased the wine in the 1970s. Evans left the wine in care of then Christie's senior director of wine,
Michael Broadbent, for safe keeping. While at Christie's in Broadbent's office, an office cleaner accidentally knocked over the bottle while dusting, causing it to fall and break on the floor.
Modern wine production

Today, Tintara Winery is a brand in the Accolade Wines portfolio. The winery is located in the McLaren Vale wine region with the vineyard influenced by the climate and geography of the nearby
Gulf St Vincent
Gulf St Vincent, sometimes referred to as St Vincent Gulf, St Vincent's Gulf or Gulf of St Vincent, is the eastern of two large inlets of water on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, the other being the larger Sp ...
and
Mount Lofty Ranges
The Mount Lofty Ranges are a range of mountains in the Australian state of South Australia which for a small part of its length borders the east of Adelaide. The part of the range in the vicinity of Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and ...
. Among the wines currently produced by Tintara are
varietal
A varietal wine is a wine made primarily from a single named grape variety, and which typically displays the name of that variety on the wine label.The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000.winepros.com.au. ...
bottlings of Shiraz, Grenache and Cabernet Sauvignon as well as blended wines.
[Tintara Wines ']
About us
'' Accessed: 4 January 2010.
See also
*
South Australian wine
References
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Wineries in McLaren Vale
1861 establishments in Australia
Food and drink companies established in 1861