FRIENDS TOAST WINE PIONEER
FAMILY and friends yesterday gathered in Armstrong Creek to farewell local wine pioneer Nini Sefton, who along with her late husband, Daryl Sefton, spearheaded Geelong’s viticulture industry.
The Seftons brought winemaking back to Geelong in 1966, establishing the Idyll vineyard on a 24ha piece of land in Moorabool Valley.
It was a risky move — viticulturists had abandoned the region 84 years earlier after their vines were destroyed by phylloxera aphids, the world’s most devastating vine louse.
Mrs Sefton’s great-grandparents, Jacob and Rosina Just, had been among the Swiss migrants who first cultivated Geelong as a winegrowing region before the phylloxera plague, and together the Seftons carried on that legacy into the 20th century and beyond.
The first plantings at Idyll took place in 1967 — first reds with shiraz and cabernet sauvignon, followed by gewurztraminer.
The Seftons began export- ing in 1981, winning a raft of awards for both the quality of their product and the label design — which Mrs Sefton, a talented painter, created herself.
Mrs Sefton and her husband auctioned off Idyll in November 1997, after more than 30 years. At the time, Mrs Sefton said it was “like parting with a child”.
“We only hope someone will take our child and turn it into an adult,” she said.
Mrs Sefton died on Sunday, July 2, less than a fortnight out from her 89th birthday and just eight months after her husband’s passing.
She was farewelled at the Geelong Crematorium Chapel in Armstrong Creek.