Just the tonic

Henry Jeffreys admires Australia’s forgotten fortified treasures

WHEN HE JOINED PENFOLDS to promote its fortified wines, John Rogerson was described, good naturedly I think, as a “traitor” by someone in the port industry. Rogerson was born and raised in Porto, speaks English with a slight Portuguese accent and has, as he puts it, “lived and breathed port my whole life”. So why move then? Well, it’s not very well known in Britain but Australia has a fortified wine heritage which is almost as rich and long as Portugal’s. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth century the country’s vineyards churned out Empire “ports” and “sherries” for the British market. One Barossa valley producer, Yalumba, was known as the “Oporto of Australia”. Housed in what looks like a huge castle, it had its own distillery and cooperage. Penfolds…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2024

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