Interview with John Graham Brown Jr [transcript] Interviewer: Rob Linn

John Brown Jr was born in Wangaratta on 23 October 1941. His parents are John and Patricia Brown. He talks about the Brown Brothers winery which started with his great grandfather planting grapes at Milawa Victoria and the first production of wine was in 1889. The grapes were Shiraz, Riesling and Muscat and all the wine sold on the domestic market. His father joined the winery in 1933 and John in 1958. It was only small when he started, only crushing 120 tons. Also had sheep and crops. 70% of the wines were table wines and 30% fortified. They sold the wine in Melbourne but it was difficult to sell the table wine. They sold it in bulk. John describes the crushing process; he was the winemaker; he was strongly influenced by Bryce Rankine at the Wine Research Institute; talks about the people who influenced him; the frost in 1967 destroyed their 1968 vintage; this led to sinking a bore which gave them the ability to regulate production; they also bought 500 acres at Swan Hill called Mystic Park which was frost-free and a property at Whitlands; they now have five vineyards with a variety of grapes. John went to Europe in 1972 and went to the Wine Research Institute in France; looked at advances in technology in Germany; and made many changes on his return. He employed more winemakers; became the CEO of the company; he had been the winemaker for 30 years; built a "kindergarten" winery for experimental work and most of their new wines came from there. They decided they would stay a family business and turned down offers of mergers. His brother Ross established an export market in 1972 in the UK and Europe. Tarrango has had very big sales in the UK. They enter their wine in the city wine shows. Company developed new labelling in 1983. The wine industry has been successful because of its industry strategy and the biggest advance has been the change in technology

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