Tonight.
A nice wine in the lighter style. I'd say that's a nod to Bordeaux and John's view that Margaret River was suited to Bordeaux-style reds.
John was a lecturer/supervisor of mine in my final undergrad year at UWA in 1970, which was only five years after his article in the (then) Journal of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science suggesting that the Margaret River region (then an impoverished soldier-settler-type small-scale dairy region staring down ultimate economic collapse) was climatically similar to Bordeaux and was therefore a prospect for the production of quality wine.
By 1970, Tom Cullity, a Perth cardiac specialist, had already established Vasse Felix and others were quickly following (Cullen etc.). They were in their earliest infancy then - but the rest is history...
Contrary to what most people may think - and what that back label conveys - John was not a viticulturalist as such. He was a plant breeder/agronomist, specialising in breeding 'sweet' (ie. edible seeds) and seed-pod shatter-resistant (ie. so they could be harvested mechanically) lupin ( a legume) cultivars for use in nitrogen fixation in the highly N-deficient sandy soils of the then opening-up northern sandplains south of Geraldton, in wheat-growing rotations. They were the days before urea and Flexi-N.
Wine appreciation - and climatology related to wine production - were actually his hobbies. He was able to integrate his agricultural science knowledge into his personal wine passion. Ultimately, of course, he became most famous for what flowed out of that.
A great legacy for a very modest and very gentle man.
Thank you, John.
