Passing Clouds: A winemaker's journeyGraeme Leith-electrician, Italophile and jack of all trades-joined Melbourne's theatre collective at Carlton's famously innovative Pram Factory theatre and said, 'Let there be light.' And there was: Graeme Blundell, Jack Hibberd, Max Gillies and many others produced over 140 new Australian plays in ten years. Like many of his generation, Graeme left suburban Australia in the 1950s, bound for London and Europe. After a stint in Britain's atomic weapons industry he rode his Lambretta scooter to Perugia in Italy, where he had his first taste of 'ethereal' wine and fell in love. But Graeme had also fallen for the idea of making wine, and in the mid-1970s he and his partner Sue Mackinnon established Passing Clouds, a vineyard in Victoria's Spa Country that produced award-winning wines from the beginning. Then tragedy struck. In 1984 Graeme's beautiful and talented daughter Ondine and her boyfriend David vanished en route to the South Coast of New South Wales. Ten days later their ute was found in Kings Cross, where it had been abandoned by their killers. Heartfelt and heartbreaking, humorous and hilarious, Passing Clouds tells of a life fully lived-a life embracing the experience of fatherhood, of triumph and disaster, of joy and tragedy, of ingenuity and sheer hard work and, above all, an unquenchable optimism. |
Contents
13 | |
31 | |
4 Return to Australia
| 59 |
5 The vision splendid
| 77 |
6 Living life to the lees
| 95 |
7 Ondine my daughter
| 131 |
8 Life goes on
| 143 |
9 Musk and more | 163 |
10 Making wine
| 207 |
Diary of a typical year
| 223 |
Diary of an exceptional year
| 265 |
Winery dogs
| 285 |
Picture Insert
| 306 |
Glossary of terms
| 307 |
Back cover
| 315 |
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Common terms and phrases
arrived asked Australian Axedale barrel became Bendigo bins Blend bottle bought Bruno buckets cabernet Cameron Carlton cellar door chardonnay clean Coldstream cooked cork cork taint couple creek crop crush crusher David Daylesford degrees baumé didn’t drive drove electrical fermentation finished fish flavour forklift friends fruit girl Graeme grapes Greg huntaway Jesse Jill Julien kilometres kilometres per hour Kingower label Lambretta later leave live look lunch mate McKernan Melbourne merlot metres Miwako morning mother Musk never night Ondine Ondine’s Passing Clouds Perugia pickers picking pinot noir police Protos pump realised returned road Rob Hall Sebastian shiraz spray stay Sue’s Susie Susie McDonald tank tasting room there’s things tractor trailer trout vines vineyard vintage Vosje wanted week wine winemaking winery wire Yarra Valley yeast Zonnebeke