Interview with Bill Moularadellis [transcript] Interviewer: Rob Linn

Bill Moularadellis was born at Kingston in December 1964. His father Sarantos migrated from Greece in 1956 and his mother Constantina came out from Greece in 1958. His father lived through the Depression and then the occupation of Greece by Germany. His parents bought a citrus property in 1961, then another block where the current winery is. They planted 30 acres of vines. Bill was educated at Loxton and Kingston and then Roseworthy to study oenology. He always worked on the family property as a child. His father built a winery and it was expected that he and his brother would work in it eventually. At that time the Riverland had a bad reputation for wine making even though they provided the grapes to Orlando. He had no contact with other Riverland winemakers. They were mainly into quantity rather than quality but Ian McKenzie set the foundations for premium winemaking. Roseworthy did not teach him how to make wine but how to learn to make wine. His first vintage was in 1986 and he was still learning how to make wine. In 1987 he had a good Shiraz by selecting the best fruit. He was committed to making botrytis wines and he sourced his fruit from many growers in the Riverland. He encouraged the growers to improve the quality of the grapes. He did his first bottling in 1986 - 9,000 litres. It was difficult to sell the Kingston Estate brand and Patrick Forbes from Austrade helped him with export from 1987/88. He started selling bulk wine to Canada. Domestic success came in about 1994/95 by providing good quality wine at a good price. He talks about the problems in 2000

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