A lack of infrastructure is always one of the most frustrating obstacles facing early vignerons. Distance compounded the problem in Western Australia as equipment and materials often had to come from the eastern states. Supply problems were endemic. Small individual operations on tight budgets meant innovation ruled, rather than state-ofthe-art equipment.
On more than one occasion, Dr Tom Cullity, a medico, founder of Vasse Felix and one of Margaret River’s pioneers, adapted medical technology to winemaking devices. The entire 1970 vintage of his Cabernet was fermented in a beer keg to which Cullity had attached an airlock fashioned from an intravenous drip. When it blocked, pressure from fermentation gases grew to astronomic levels and when the cap of the keg was removed, the entire contents sprayed onto a galvanised iron wall. How times have changed!An outstanding Margaret River Chardonnay.
