Busby James

Busby James James Busby (1802-1871) was born in Edinburgh (Scotland) and is considered the father and pioneer of Australian viticulture. There are some parallels between him and Agoston Haraszthy (1812-1869) the founder of Californian viticulture. Busby had travelled through several European wine-growing countries at the beginning of the 19th century and had studied viticulture intensively. A little later he emigrated with his parents to Australia.

In 1822, he published a book on the "cultivation of the vine and the art of winemaking", which he had written during the long voyage by ship. In doing so, he also exploited findings from the French chemist Claude Chaptal (1769-1821). This prompted many settlers to take a practical interest in this subject. In 1825, he founded a farm north of Sydney in what is now the GI area of the Hunter Valley and chose one of Australia's best wine regions purely by chance. He named the farm Kirkton after his Scottish birthplace.

In 1830 he returned to Europe again and visited many wineries in Spain and France. In 1831 he also met the legendary Don Pedro Domecq at his winery in the Jerez region. On his return in 1833, he took 570 French and Spanish cuttings with him, including the red grape variety Syrah (which he called Scyras and later became famous as Shiraz). He gave one of each variety to the Sydney Botanical Gardens and planted the others on his farm. About his trip he wrote the essay "Journal of a tour through some wine-growing regions of France and Spain". Silesian immigrants made use of his findings when they planted vineyards in the Barossa Valley and started to grow wine, starting in 1841. Busby is also considered the first major wine producer in New Zealand.

Picture: From McDonald, Gemeinfrei, Link

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Busby James

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