Family Values
A special release from awardwinning winery Yalumba celebrates a man who embodies the values at the heart of the family-owned brand. “To be successful in the Australian wine industry, your focus must be split three ways: what’s happening globally, at home and with the weather,” says Jane Ferrari, who’s been with the winery since 1987 and is now Yalumba’s wine communicator at large. No one knew that better than Fred Caley, the grandson of Yalumba founder Samuel Smith. Already a highly regarded horticulturalist by his mid-20s, he set off on the adventure of a lifetime in 1893 to learn about the latest developments in the fruit-growing, canning and viticulture industries (Yalumba produced preserved fruit, wine and spirits back then) to improve and strengthen the family business.
India, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, Canada, England and the United States: Caley’s travels were extensive and he documented them in extraordinary detail in letters sent to his father in the Barossa Valley. Rediscovered only 20 years ago, these letters tell the story of a journey that laid the foundations for Yalumba’s enduring global view.
“In San Jose, he met the people who invented the first stirrup pump for spraying Bordeaux mix to prevent diseases in orchards and got one sent to Australia – the first in the country – to trial at Yalumba,” says Ferrari. In Victoria, on Vancouver Island, he visited an operation where they had made the revolutionary (at the time) change of putting their preserved fruit in glass jars instead of cans – another groundbreaking move he implemented back home. Caley also travelled with bottles of his family’s wine, which he shared with those he met along the route, starting trade relationships that endure today.
In some ways, not much has changed – Yalumba is Australia’s most historic family-owned winery and innovation is at its core. “We’re exactly what we say we are: a business with a global view, held together by an extremely strong provincial hub,” says Ferrari. “Every time we pour a bottle and tell our story, it lands well, both on people’s palates and in their hearts.”