Interview with David Crosby [transcript] Interviewer: Rob Linn

After being demobbed from the Navy at the end of World War II, David Crosby learnt that he was entitled to tertiary education through the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. He decided upon the oenology course at Roseworthy Agricultural College. Although there was no tradition of winemaking in his family, he knew the Hardy and Haselgrove families and therefore was able to have the necessary work experience for admission to the oenology course in 1949. David's reminiscences include his memories of fellow students. He stressed that when he began the wine industry was dominated by family businesses with very few management openings for outsiders. From his student days, David was always interested in the marketing of wines. He became the Sales Manager for Haselgroves at Reynella and in 1957 he introduced the first wine service course at the School of Mines. Because he was a Sales Manager and with his social contacts, David's interview has a great deal of detail on individual personalities. Readers are advised to listen to the audio tape as well as read the transcript for the names of particular people and firms. David Crosby was working at the time of great changes in Australian wines with the decline of fortified wines and the introduction of refrigeration to improve white wines. After three years working for PA Management Consultants, David Crosby had the necessary management experience to be appointed General Wine Manager for companies such as Gilbeys and Hungerford Hill. Heart problems and perhaps nepotism meant that David Crosby left the wine industry to establish his own consultancy practice outside the wine industry. David Crosby believes that the biggest change in the wine industry has been 'a change of management from winemaker orientation to marketing orientation and profit orientation.'

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