REGIONAL ARCHIVE

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Glenrowan

Introduction
Region Summary
Principal Wine Styles

Choose winery:   Select Option Auldstone Baileys of Glenrowan Booth's Taminick Cellars Goorambath Judds Warby Range Estate

Introduction

Between 1824, when explorers Hume and Howell found the gap in the mountain range which would become the site of the Glenrowan township, and the 1870s, when the Melbourne-Sydney railway was built, passing through the same gap, Glenrowan gradually took shape.

This is Ned Kelly country, as immersed in history as Rutherglen, but with an added touch of romance from the days of the bushrangers. The feel of the country, too, is subtly different, flanked as it is by the Warby Range on the eastern side, and Lake Mokoan on the other (south-western) side

In an oft-repeated story vines had followed in the footsteps of gold. Richard Bailey and family settled near Glenrowan in the early 1860s, operating the first store in the town to supply the Beechworth and Ovens gold miners. When the gold ran out, they turned to farming on their property Bundarra (aboriginal for meeting of the hills) at the southern foot of the Warby Range.

In 1866 son Varley Bailey planted vines to supplement the grazing activities on the farm, choosing the rich, red granite soil found on part of the property. The first vintage was made in 1870, and demand for the wines - particularly fortified - led to significant expansion of the plantings. By 1892 the wines were sold locally, in Melbourne and exported to England.

Varley Bailey replaced the old slab cellar with concrete cellars which are still in use today. He died in 1931. His son Alan Bailey ran the winery, using the same techniques as his farther and grandfather, until 1972 when it was sold toe Davis Gelatine (a story in itself); it is now part of Beringer Blass.

Others to establish vineyards included Robert Cox, who established the Herceynia Vineyard; Esca Booth, who in 1904 bought a phylloxera-infested vineyards which he replanted with grafted stock and named Taminick Vineyards, still owned by the Booth Family; HJT Vineyard, established by the late Harvey Tinson and wife Wendy in 1979 after he retired from Baileys; and in 1987 Michael and Nancy Reid acquired the Herceynia Vineyard which had passed into the ownership of Baileys but was severely run down, rehabilitated it and named it Auldstone Cellars.

by James Halliday