Thomas Hardy gives rise to McLaren Vale when he buys the Tintara Winery from Alexander Kelly in 1877
The flour mill converted by Thomas Hardy at McLaren Vale remains at the heart of the Tintara Winery.
Image courtesy Accolade Wines
Thomas Hardy’s purchase of Dr Alexander Kelly’s Tintara Winery on the Fleurieu Peninsula, south of Adelaide, in 1877, also started the growth of McLaren Vale township when Hardy also bought an old flour mill in its main street to adapt it to wine making.
In 1881, Hardy built a four-storey warehouse, head office and bottling cellars, called Tintara House (demolished in 1961) at 87–89 Currie Street, Adelaide. In 1887 he founded Thomas Hardy and Sons Ltd. with his three sons James Hardy, Thomas Hardy and Robert Hardy, and Joseph Rowe Osborn. Tintara remained the home into the 20th Century of the Hardy Wine Company, now part of the Accolade Wines portfolio).
Tintara Winery is producer of the oldest surviving bottle of Australia wine. The bottle, a Bordeaux-style blend, labelled as claret, is from the 1867 vintage. Previously unknown, it resurfaced in the 1970s and in 1977 was sold to a private collector by Sotheby’s auction house.
It became the oldest bottle of Australian wine after previous record holder – an 1864 bottle of cabernet sauvignon from South Australia’s Pewsey Vale – was accidentally smashed. That bottle had been owned by winemaker and collector Len Evans who bought it in the 1970s. Evans left the wine in care of then Christie’s senior director of wine, Michael Broadbent, for safe keeping. While at Christie’s in Broadbent’s office, a cleaner accidentally knocked over the bottle while dusting. In 2003, the Hardy Wine Company, as owners of Tintara Winery bought the bottle for an undisclosed five-figure sum.
Tintara Winery continues to produce varietal bottles of shiraz, grenache and cabaret sauvignon as well as blended wines.
