How Che Guevara helped the Australian wine industry
And why we now have premium cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay
Ian Hickinbotham
Harvesting at night
The Che Guevara story seems far removed from anything Australian, but the Argentinian-born social revolutionary indirectly helped Australia to become the world leader of mechanical harvesting of grapes.
In the early 1960s, Guevara (also known as Chevara, or simply Che) organised the Mexican grape pickers who annually picked the grape crops of nearby California. Aside from social justice issues, he realised that the development of mechanical grape picking machines could lead to the loss of grape picking jobs, the 'domain' of seasonal Mexican workers.
He arranged that the Mexicans withdrew or threatened to withdraw their labour – precisely when the grapes of California were nearly ripe. In the event, a deal was struck, but a vital factor was that Californian winegrowers would then never use the mechanical harvesters that were being developed to replace the pickers, especially by universities.
For years these experimental mechanical harvesters were stored in sheds in southern California.
Dr John Possingham, then the divisional Chief of Horticulture of Australia's CSIRO, saw an opportunity, and prevailed upon Cornell University to 'give' him a mechanical harvester (since they were never going to use it). He then persuaded a senior Australian bureaucrat in Washington to fly the three tonne machine to Australia, just in time to catch the 1969 vintage.
From that stage on, mechanical harvesters were virtually developed by Australians, who were then naturally perceived to be the leading experts.
On this basis, Possingham made a deal with the French (who were not exactly friendly with the USA – it was about the time of the 'chicken war'), that CSIRO would 'teach' them about mechanical harvesters and in return, the French would allow our scientists access to stocks of the new clones of classical grape varieties, like cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir.
This was a critical time for the Australian wine industry. Stringent quarantine laws had to that point prevented Australia from introducing even new grape varieties. Thus, until that time, Australia did not grow chardonnay or pinot noir, two of the truly classical grape varieties that are the backbone of both the Burgundy and Champagne classical regions. (However, those same quarantine regulations kept many awful vine diseases out of the Australian continent.)
A direct benefit was the introduction of superior clones of cabernet sauvignon, the Bordeaux region's classical grape variety. The CSIRO introduced these; as they produce smaller bunches of smaller berries and as flavour is close to the skin of a berry, more flavoursome wine slowly became the norm.
These grapes were suited to mechanical harvesting – ironically, such small bunches can cost about half their worth if picked by hand using Australian-paid personnel.
Ian Hickinbotham, one of the most innovative and influential oenologists in Australia over his 50 year career, is the author of Australian Plonky (see related reviews below).
Editor's note: the subsequent French grape harvesters then became the model for the development of the mechanical tea harvester, the technology of which was 'reimported' into Australia from France in the early 1990s and created the foundation of large-scale tea growing and production on Queensland's Atherton Tablelands (and is now used in other tea-producing countries with relatively high labour costs, such as Malaysia).
As I frequently say, 'you can grow anything in Australia, you just can't afford to harvest it'. How true this is today for our fruit and in particular the rapidly disappearing remnants of Tasmania's apple industry.
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