The 6th largest country in the world, and the largest in the continent of Oceania, Australia is roughly the same size as the continental United States. The first settlers arrived 60,000 years ago in one lump, anthropo-chronologically speaking, as one of the earliest migrations out of Africa. 20,000 years later they made it to Tasmania over a land bridge present during the final ice age. They remained almost completely isolated until 4000 years ago, when Asians made contact, followed by Europeans in the 17th century.

The Dutch were the first European explorers in 1606, followed later that year by the Spanish and more Dutch. They concluded the dry and infertile land was unsuitable for colonisation and left. However, according to British naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences Sir Joseph Banks, who traveled with Captain James Cook on his first great voyage (1770), it was a fine place to put criminals, convincing New South Wales Governor Arthur Phillip to earmark it for the first penal colony, in Botany Bay (1788). Phillip decided this was not suitable and moved the colony to Port Jackson, the site of modern day Sydney. Other, presumably law-abiding, settlements were subsequently formed, but those details aren’t nearly as entertaining.

A wine industry had developed in southern England during the late 1700s, and among the many agricultural items accompanying the convicts on their transglobal journey were grape vine cuttings. Planted in the Royal Botanic Garden, the Small Black Cluster (Pinot Noir) and Black Cluster (Pinot Meunier), both common wall-garden varieties, failed to thrive there following an outbreak of blight (anthracnose).  These hardy, versatile grape varieties had been grown successfully at Charles Hamilton’s Painshill Vineyard, near Cobham, in Surrey (see James Clarke, “A Most Cursed Hill: Painshill and the Beginnings of English Wine,” WFW 21, pp.80–85). Later plantings, brought from another colony – Cape Town, South Africa, where Captain Arthur Phillip was assisted by the Scottish botanist Francis Masson, one of Sir Joseph Banks’ most successful plant hunters – did thrive. Almost certainly among the grape varieties collected were Pontac, Steen (Chenin Blanc), Groendruif (Semillon), Hanepoot, and Muscadel, which were all thriving in South African vineyards, along with Black Frontignan, Black Burgundy (Black Cluster), Muscat of Alexandria, Syrian, and Black Hamburgh from the 6th Earl of Coventry’s Croome Park in Worcestershire, England.

Additionally, early settlers from England brought cuttings of Verdelho from Madeira, and Sweetwater or Listan Bianco (Palomino) from the Canary Islands. By 1830 there was a communal call amongst farmers for more diverse varietals, and James Busby, a Scotsman, after travels in France and Spain, shipped back between 300 and 500 cuttings (depending on which records you believe) including Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Mataro, Grenache, Carignan, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay.[The World of Fine Wine: The Australian Ark: The storied history of Australia’s pre-phylloxera grapevines August 13, 2024, excerpted from Andrew Caillard MW, author of “The Australian Ark a three-volume history of Australian wine 1788–2023”] Because of this, he is regarded as the father of the Australian wine industry [wikipedia].

A cottage wine industry developed alongside the industrial advancement and gold-fuelled wealth of the 1800s, and when phylloxera devastated European farms in the 1860s, there was a massive expansion of winemaking in the British colonies, including Australia, until 1877 when it was discovered in Victoria and strict quarantine rules were implemented, on a state by state basis. In 1908, when stricter phylloxera restrictions had benefited South Australia’s wine economy compared to Victoria’s, the latter’s state viticulturist Francois de Castella imported a massive amount of phylloxerra-resistant American-rootstocked varietals – Mondeuse, Durif (Petite Syrah), Cinsault (also known as Blue Imperial or Oeillade), Tempranillo, Graciano, Malbec, Merlot, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. His actions revived the Victorian wine economy. The industry as a whole boomed until the Export Bounty Act of 1924, which promoted fortified wine production. This severely curtailed Australia’s fine wine production, as well as its wine reputation, until science, technology, and social change reinvigorated the industry, starting with Max Shubert’s Penfolds Grange Hermitage, along with some quality whites. Importation of cuttings and experimentation has continued, bringing Australia to the esteemed level it maintains today.