The Burgoyne wine heritage lives on.
At Glug our labels remember Australian wine industry history. And Peter Bond Burgoyne has a special place in it as the most famous and influential importer of Australian wines into the U.K.
Burgoyne set up shop on Old Bond Street, London in 1871 after becoming an agent for the pioneer McLaren Vale vigneron, Dr Alexander Charles Kelly of Tintara.
An 1880 description reads:
‘P.B. Burgoyne is a rich ruby-coloured Australian Wine, the produce of ferruginous vineyards. It has no additions whatever. It is of a generous quality-it enriches the blood, and is an effective recuperative in extreme lassitude, anaemia and………. It is universally recommended by the medical profession.’
Burgoyne had grand ambitions for Australian wine. He bought the Mount Ophir estate farming and vineyard property in Rutherglen in 1903 where he built a large winery and cellars.
It may have been the largest winery in Australia. By 1900 Burgoyne was a towering figure across the wine business. His firm controlled most of the exports to the U.K. and was the largest importer of Australian wine into the U.K. until the 1920s.
[The Mount Ophir winery closed in 1955 though whether it was owned by Burgoyne at this time is uncertain. It was purchased by the Brown Family in May 2016.]
The Burgoyne brand was revived in the mid-1990s. The first release by Glug was a P.B.Burgoyne McLaren Vale Shiraz 2006. A P.B.Burgoyne Langhorne Creek Shiraz 2008 followed. There will be many more. The Burgoyne wine heritage lives on.