1927

Friday March 11th 1927, page 118

The enclosing and roofing of Block 3 was in progress and underground tanks 801 to 812 were being installed and would be covered by a lean-to section on the northern side. Provision for stillage above the 5,000 gallon tanks would be installed later.
The building in its layout and construction, and the business which it represents, consitute a monument to the genius of the manager. When Mr. Rump, whose experience had been gained at Seppeltsfield, was appointed five years ago, the business was in a bad way and there was a total storage of 35,000 gallons. Today the distillery has a storage capacity of close on 2,000,000 gallons, and there is no sounder business in Australia. The enlargement of the premises has been made possible by generous grants of money from the State Treasury, and the present prosperity is due largely to the Commonwealth export bounty on sweet wine, but Mr. Rump's management must still be counted the prime factor in the success of the venture. Without the assurance of good management, as Mr. Butterfield stated during his recent visit to Berri, the Government might well have hesitated before advancing, as they done, over £100,000 for construction work.
Mr. Rump ststed on Friday that some 3,000 tons of Currant grapes had been received this season up to that date. The deliveries were being handled without difficulty, and provision is made for receiving 300 tons of grapes a day, or 1500 tons per week. The management is looking forward to making 500,000 gallons of spirit and 400000 gallons of sweet wine during the current vintage. This has already been sold at prices that are expected to return the growers a minimum of £8 a ton for their grapes. The total crushings should exceed 20,000 tons tons of grapes, and th total wine made (including that for conversion into spirit) should approximatefour million gallons.
Speaking subsequently at the luncheon at the Riverside Hotel, Mr. Cheriton said the the distillery has a total storage capacity of 1,950,000 gallons, equal to the prduct of 13,000 tons of grapes, and bond storage for 138,600 gallons of spirit, the product of 4,000 tons of grapes. The stills were able to treat the wine from 2,400 tons, yielding over 80,000 gallons of spirit a month.
There were 120 fermenting vats with a capacity of 300,000 gallons, 48 for wine maturing with a capacity of 394,000 gallons, and the new room provided storage for 400,000 gallons for distillation. On an estimate of 20,000 tons of grapes the amount paid in Excise this year would be about £255,000.
Have photo showing completed building


Friday April 22nd 1927, page 190

Delays at the Distillery resulting in shareholders waiting six to seven hours to unload their grapes and the shareholders from the outlying area of Cobdogla an Loveday felt that a specific crusher could be allotted for their prime use.
Weekly delivery quotas were in force and there a general hiccup with the Anzac Day holiday which meant that many growers missed out on their weekly delivery. The writer of the article sincerely hoped that management would address the problem.


Friday June 24th 1927, page 297

The Board had approached the Adelaide University reguesting advice for controlling the objectionable smell of the evaporating effluent contained in the "Lily Ponds" and the Winkie drainage basin.

Tonnage
By Tuesday June 21st 19, 229 tons had passed over the weighbridge


Friday July 15th 1927, Page 334

The Pioner reported that a meeting of 236 shareholders was held on the evening of Monday July 4th at Barmera to discuss further extensions to the distillery. Mr. H.P. Tilley of Messrs G.R. Annells, Tilley and Henderson (the Company's Auditors) explained in detail the financial of the Company and shareholders' interest in respect of share capital should they agree to subscribe the amount required to meet the cost of further extensions out of their 1927 tonnage delivered.

The proposed extensions would cost approximately £18,000 and would be funded from share capital and deductions would be 10/- per ton for the 1927 and 1928 vintages. The meeting unanimously agreed for the additions and alterations to proceed along with deductions from both vintages.

The new vintage cellar became known as No. 2 Ferment Cellar.

Friday October 28th 1927, page 514

A report was published in the Murray Pioneer of a review given by
Mr. R. H. Martin, a committee member of the Federal Viticultural Council, of the operation of the Wine export Bounty Act at a Viticultural Congress held at Rutherglen, Victoria. Mr. Martin's address covered the period from 1901 to 1927.
In the period 1901-1904 there was an over-production of grapes and wine and grape prices were reduced to 30/- per ton which rendered grape growing unprofitable and large areas of vines were uprooted. During the ensuing years regulations were introduced which allowed only grape spirit to be used for the fortification of wine and that which prohibited the making of brandy from anything other than grape wine.
The drought of 1914 was responsible for the virtual failure of the 1915 vintage and stocks of wine did not become normal until 1922 when the supply of wine exceeded the demand and grape prices fell from 1/3rd to 1/2 of the price paid in 1921. In 1923 prices fell further and in 1924 Doradillos were sold, with difficulty, as low as £3 per ton.

The production of wine during 1920 to 1924 gave a good summary of the industry.

     
In 1924 the "Doradilla Committee" estimated that this variety produced about 9,500,000 gallons which included beverage wine and wine used for brandy and spirit production plus sweet fortified wine for export.
Rather than uproot some 10,000 to 15,000 acres, some of which was still to come into full production,  the Federal Viticultural Council proposed the Bounty Act which came into operation on the 1st September 1924. This provided that a bounty of 4/- per gallon should be paid on all wines of a merchantable quality and of an alcoholic strenght of no less than 34% proof spirit exported out of Austarlia. It should be noted that the excise paid by the winemaker amounts approximately 1/6 per proof gallon, so the so-called bounty of 4/- was actually made up of a drawback of 1/6 and a bounty of 2/6 per gallon of wine.

British Tariff rates September 1924

                   

Trade Growth for period 1923-1928

The increase in export to Great Britain reduced stocks of wine and resulted in a greater demand for grapes and increased prices. Winemakers responded to this by installing additional storage of both tanks and casks and the latest machinery to enable the processing of increased tonnages of grapes.
Prior to this the Prime Minister had directed the Tariff Board to look at the industry and had recommended to maintain the bounty at 4/- per gallon for the next 5 years. However a minority report attached recommended a reduction to 3/- per gallon. No decision was made before the 1927 vintage took place and when the reduction was introduced it caused severe problems with both financial and storage problems. The Government had acted with ineptitude and procrastination.

1928

Friday March 16th 1928, page 104

Wine Bounty Reduction

Industry leaders had roundly condemned the reduction and would mean that the landed cost of duty paid wines from Australia would be above the British, Portuguese and Spanish wines.
At Berri a meeting of 156 growers unanimously carried a resolution of strong protest against the proposed reduction.
A deputation consisting of Messrs W. Gursansky (president of the Grape Growers' Association), S. W. Coombe (Renmark Growers' Distillery) and H. W. Dalziel (Berri Cooperative Distillery) went to Canberra to complain.

Friday April 20th 1928, page 154

What has the Bounty cost

A speech by a Mr. Parsons in the House of Represntatives supporting the  4/- per gallon has cost some £300,000 odd and had saved thousands of returned soldiers from ruin.

Friday October 12th 1928, page 414

At end of 1928 stocks of fortifying spirit there was 500,000 proof gallons in store