Kay Brothers is celebrating 125 years in McLaren Vale. It has published The First 125 Years, a stunning book with great stories and old photographs.
The book is based on winery diaries dating back to 1891. Colin Kay still maintains a diary; has done since 1977 – the year Elvis Presley died and Joe Tex sang Ain’t Gonna Bump No More With No Big Fat Woman. This book is the epitome of integrity – the most sought-after quality in the wine business. New World? Long bow
These are the years that we have spent, and this is what they represent… Bert and Fred Kay, early 1920s. Bert is such a Bert and Fred is such a Fred. Happy birthday, boys, and set ’em up.
d’Arry Osborn OAM writes in the foreword: “As children we rode our bikes up steep hills on the way home from primary school. On the hottest days, the Kays, busy loading the train with barrels, put our bikes on the truck to give us a lift home.”
d’Arry continues: “I remember Herbert Kay and ‘Uncle Fred’ and the dignity with which they carried themselves as they built their business and were active participants in the fledgling local wine industry. When I started making wine at our own winery, Cud Kay often helped me with advice. Kays started vintage a week or two before us, and I would take two buckets of our freshly crushed grape juice to his tanks and take out buckets of his fermenting juice to start our own ferments. This was typical behaviour of the day, where business neighbours, while competitors in the strictest sense of the word, did not see it that way and lived their highly intertwined lives co-operating and helping each other.”
After all these years, neighbours still look out for one another in the Australian wine community – whether borrowing a bucket, baking a cake, dropping off eggs, rounding up a stray piglet or penning a foreword for a book. It’s the Australian way – and it’s a great asset.
To buy a copy of the book, click here.
What’s the best thing your neighbour has ever done for you? Moved on? Let us know!
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