Australian Plonky

by Ian Hickinbotham

Adelaide: University of Adelaide Barr Smith Press, 2008

244 pages | b/w photos and colour inserts | ISBN 978-0-86396-7122

Ian Hickinbotham is one of Australia’s most innovative wine-makers and he played a key role in developing Australia’s international reputation for fine wines.  He was involved in the creation of the two great Australian wines, Penfolds Grange and Coonawarra Estate Claret (Shiraz).

As well as  introducing a scientific approach to wine-making, he also initiated the famous “bag-in-the-box” cask and the 200ml size bottles for airlines.

This is his own personal account of his remarkable fifty-year career.

Read Robyn Lewis's review on VisitVineyards.com

For more information on the Hickinbotham family's current and past winemaking activities click here.

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Excerpt - Preface

Australian Plonky is the autobiography of Ian Hickinbotham, graduate number 35 (when 21 years old) of the inaugural Diploma of Oenology course established in 1936 at Roseworthy Agricultural College, Australia’s oldest agricultural college, located 40 km from the Barossa Valley in South Australia. He was the first Australian oenologist to be elected Honorary Life Member, American Society for Enology and Viticulture.
In just fifty years, Australian winemakers had to progressively change from making 70% fortified wine to 90% table wine, and it was during this period that Ian Hickinbotham made his substantial contribution to the wine industry.

Analysis of an article from The Bulletin in 1984 discloses that Hickinbotham initiated and/or made 24% of the Australian branded wines sold that year. In addition, he has been uniquely involved in the creation of the two great Australian wines, Coonawarra Estate Claret (Shiraz) and Penfolds Grange – by making the former and marketing the latter. Interestingly, although both evolved in different ways, they were born in the same year, 1952.

Hickinbotham introduced malo-lactic secondary fermentation to quality Australian winemaking when making the inaugural Coonawarra Estate Claret. A new method of making sparkling wine in the form of Sparkling Rinegolde was his outstanding commercial success, accomplished during his time at Kaiser Stuhl in the Barossa Valley – a brand he created. Ian Hickinbotham is also remembered for his invention of the transfer machine for making Champagne, the floating tank lid, and the introduction of hermetic centrifuges for clarifying sparkling wine.

During his time managing Penfolds in Victoria, he initiated the development of the bag-in-the-box (the Tablecask), subsequently used for 70% of Australia’s wines. Unfortunately the company abandoned the project.

During the decade of managing one of Melbourne’s top ten restaurants, independence from the wine industry allowed Hickinbotham to write two weekly wine columns for The Age and The Australian Financial Review while inaugural President of the Wine Press Club of Victoria and Contributing Editor, Australian Society of Wine Education. These activities supported the family business of wine tasting and winemaking consulting.

After educating his children (two of them at French universities), Ian Hickinbotham reverted to winegrowing, but for cash flow in 1984 he initiated a process of packaging quality wines in 200 mL bottles for airlines using the Stelvin screw cap (of which some 800 000 a year were used). For this accomplishment he won prestigious awards for British Airways and Ansett.

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." (Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532)