Interview with Wolf Blass [transcript] Interviewer: Rob Linn

Wolf Blass was born in 1934. His grandparents had a distribution centre in a bottling company and his mother worked there. He was brought up during the Second World War and lived in East Germany. He had to learn Russian. He crossed the border to West Germany in 1948 and was a viticulture apprentice until 1952. He attained a Diploma in Wine Making and then worked 5 years to get a Kellermeister (Master of Wine Diploma) qualifying when he was 23. He went to London in 1957/8 and stayed 3 years. In 1961 he accepted an offer from Ian Hickinbothan at Kaiser Stuhl to come to Australia and make pearl wine. Ian was very theoretical and ahead of his time but was not very practical. They had to compete with Orlando who made Barossa Pearl. Wolf found it difficult socially to meet women in the Barossa. He was accepted into the Bacchus Club but there was very little socialising in the wine industry. He created and marketed sparkling wines. He made fruit wines - pineapple pearl and cherry pearl. Men started drinking more wine and women started to drink wine. Six to seven family companies controlled the whole market. His Riesling was the first to win prizes at the Royal Adelaide Wine Show. He made his first vintage of 3,000 bottles in 1966 when his agreement with Kaiser Stuhl was finished. He made Charmane sparkling wine. In 1969 he started work at Tolley, Scott and Tolley and in 3 years they became the most successful red wine exhibitor in Australia. He then became an independent winemaker. He began blending wines to make them drinkable. He made wines that were easy to drink and quicker to mature. He has 54 scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. In 1974 he was the first independent winemaker to win the Jimmy Watson trophy. He won 9 or 10 Montgomery trophies. 70% of Wolf Blass products are exported. He first started exporting in Oceania in the 1970s. He talks about John Glaetzer, Peter Lehmann, and the Barossa Vintage Festivals. In 1984 his company went public, he held about 65% but it could not survive so he merged with Mildara and then Fosters took over. The biggest change has been in the export market

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