Who was John Riddoch?

Who was John Riddoch?

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Highland Flung 

Scottish farmers are famously gritty. Anyone who’s herded Hie’land coos in winter wi’ nae but a sporran to keep their cockles warm is no sissy. But the 1800s were especially tough. The notorious ‘highland clearances’ saw thousands of families evicted from their traditional farming lands to small - often coastal - communities. Dispossessed farmers and crofters eked out livings as best they could - collecting kelp and growing potatoes. Until potato blight arrived and the kelp market fell through. 

A wise mon can ken when it’s time to declare, and John Riddoch snr was such a mon. In 1851, he packed up the family - wife Helen, wee George (just 9) and the big yin, John Jnr (aged 24) - and departed Scotland for a life of opportunity in the colonies.

A Small Fortune

They arrived at the height of the Victorian goldrush, and what ambitious 24-year-old wouldn’t want to be in thick of that? John junior headed straight for the goldfields, where he worked as a carter, a digger, and a buyer at sites along the Ovens River. When he’d made a modest fortune, he returned to bustling Geelong, and invested his windfall, becoming a shopkeeper and wine merchant. John did well. He married, and business was good. But John Riddoch had ambitions beyond Geelong. 

Best in Show

In 1861, he purchased Yallum Park - a 35,000-acre property in the Penola area of South Australia - where he ran 50,000 head of sheep. Yallum didn’t come for a song. At £30,000 (around $4.5million today) John needed to borrow heavily. But his superior farming methods and fastidious attention to detail (like washing sheep before shearing to remove grass seeds, twigs, and burrs) paved the way for success. By 1871, John Riddoch’s wool was the best classed fibre in the district, and his clip commanded the highest prices in the state. 

A Large Fortune

The ‘Squire of Penola’ embraced his newfound wealth with enthusiasm. He expanded his landholdings and built a luxurious Italianate mansion surrounded by lawns, gardens, exotic trees, a forty-acre deer park - and a small home vineyard. 

With the notion of nationhood gaining momentum in the colonies, John embraced a brief, but energetic political career - serving twice in the South Australian House of Assembly. He was successful, influential, wealthy, and generous. Churches, museums, galleries, and artists – like his good friend, the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon - were all beneficiaries of his munificence.

Vision

Though he’d made his fortune as a pastoralist, John had become increasingly convinced of the region’s potential for fruit cultivation. In 1890, John Riddoch took a bold step towards realising a long-held dream: subdividing a huge tract of prime land north of Yallum into 10-acre blocks, he offered them to small tenant fruit-growers for the exclusive production of orchards and vineyards. He named his visionary settlement The Penola Fruit Colony.  

It’s all in the timing

Shortly after he launched his dream, the property bubble burst, banks collapsed, and Australia entered into a depression. Bankrolled by Riddoch, the fledgling fruit colony slowed but didn’t stall, and in 1895 it completed its first vintage. 

Just two years later - in March 1897 - Riddoch’s brand-new triple-gabled sandstone and timber winery accepted (by dray) its first intake of fruit. That same year, a village for the Penola Fruit Colony was surveyed and approved by council. John proposed a name for the settlement, which was enthusiastically and unanimously accepted by the Colonists’ Association. 
The Penola Fruit Colony became the Coonawarra Fruit Colony. And a wine region was born.

An end and a beginning

But John’s health was failing. He placed son, Jack, in charge of the business, and in July 1901 - just 6 months after his adopted home became a nation - John Riddoch passed away in his Yallum Park mansion. He left behind a wife, three daughters, son Jack - and a red-soil region that today is synonymous with some of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon wines the world has known.

John Riddoch, WineDown salutes you. 

Slàinte!