WWI returned solders form grape grower shareholders of Berri cooperative; building huge winery from 1922

Aerial view in 1930 of Berri Growers Co-operative Distillery Company plant (later Berri Co-operative Winery then Berri Estates) in South Australia's Riverland. Inset: One of the World War I returned solders, who became grape grower shareholders of the Berri cooperate, delivering his share of a vintage in the 1920s.
Image (main by Darian D. Smith) courtesy State Library of South Australia.

Berri Growers' Cooperative Distillery was formed in the South Australia’s Riverland town in 1922 with shareholders comprising 90% World War I returned soldiers, who were alloted blocks of not less than 10 acres of already-planted Doradilla vines.

The cooperative company was arranged with each shareholder compelled to take up, on a sliding scale, a minimum £20 share capital and a maximum of £500, and only owners of one or more acres of irrigable land in the Berri Barmera irrigation areas eligible to be shareholders.

The cooperative took over Berri Distillery, on the corner of the main Berry Barmera road and the old Sturt Highway, that had been set up as a division of Berri Cooperative Packing Union in 1916. When greater emphasis on beverage wines, the name changed to Berri Co-operative Winery and Distillery Ltd. that remained for 50 years, although its branding became Berri Estates in the 1970s.

The Berri cooperative distillery from 1922 made early rapid growth and, under directors J. C. Cheriton (chairman), J. B. Anderson. H. McK. Dalzie. Norman Dyer, W. H. Lister. L. K. Maddern, and P. H. Nixon, had become the largest distillery of its kind in the southern hemisphere by 1927. The Chronicle also reported in 1927 that, ancipating a 20,000 tons vintage, general manager W. A. Rump and secretary L. W. A. Peacock, were claiming a world record for the 500 tones of grapes received in day at its plant in 1927.

From 1922, the quantity of grapes able to be handled at the plant had grown from 800 tone to 20,000 tons. Storage capacity was being extended to two million gallons with a move towards from spirit brandy to more wine being produced “if the Wine Bounty Act is extended”. The wines being made in 1927 were muscatel, port and sherry. According to The Chronicle, settlers at that time in the Monash, Berri, and Barmera districts said the cooperative plant was “not large enough to cope with the tonnage which may be expected next year”.

In 1981, Berri Co-operative Winery & Distillery Ltd merged with the Renmano Wines Cooperative Ltd to form the CCW (Consolidated Co-Operative Wine) Co-op Limited with the main aim to produce wine from shareholders’ fruit and offer a satisfactory return to CCW growers for their fruit. In 1989, CCW was restructured, forming the publicly unlisted company Berri Renmano Limited. It bought into BRL Hardy Wine Company that, after several corporate changes, emerged as Accolade Wine Group in 2011.

Accolade was in charge of Berri Estates as the biggest winery in the southern hemisphere with its main supplier the CCW Co-operative, representing a shareholder group of more than 600 Riverland wine grape growers. This represented about half 50% of the contracted Riverland wine grape production from the largest independent grape grower group in Australia.