Nigel Hopkins

WHEN you’ve won almost every award your industry can give you, been honored by two national governments, add in a couple of honorary doctorates for services to that industry and the community and achieved a professional reputation possibly unmatched by your peers – and you’re less than two years short of 90 – you could be excused for saying, in whatever the German words might be, thanks guys, I’ve had enough – I’m out of here.
But that’s not Wolf Blass.
He could easily have just gone on going to the races to watch his racehorses win, shooting competitively with his .22 pistol most Saturday mornings, and waited for the next footy season to watch if his beloved Norwood can win the SANFL premiership again.
He’ll do all of that, and he remains an international ambassador for Wolf Blass Wines, which has won more than 10,000 national and international wine show awards since he started the company in 1966 – then named Bilyara, or Eaglehawk.
But six decades after the young German winemaker migrated to Australia, at the behest of Ian Hickinbotham who’d recruited him to make sparkling wines at Kaiser Stuhl (and give a wakeup to Orlando’s then market leader Barossa Pearl), he’s no longer focussed on the industry that made him famous and wealthy.
At 88, Blass knows he may not live for ever – though that’s not entirely certain, given his continued energy, but he is determined that his legacy will live on through the Wolf Blass Foundation that he founded in 1994 on his 60th birthday with an initial $1 million donation.
“This country has been very good to me… and I’ve been good for the country,” Blass said later, determined that his Foundation could be a way of giving something back.
Its goal was to assist the wine industry to achieve excellence in winemaking, viticulture and marketing, and Blass saw it underpinning work in viticultural and oenological research and development, wine education, wine and health, and creating a global wine industry profile for Australia.
But the opportunities it presented were slow to be recognised by the wine industry as a whole until the success of one of its major projects, an inaugural International Wine and Health Conference held in Sydney in 1996, which attracted a host of national and international epidemiologists and research scientists.
“The health conference at the time was one of the biggest critical issues the wine industry was facing in 1996,” Blass says. “It was the biggest thing we ever did. We flew in people from Holland, America, England, research scientists and so on. It was one of the biggest projects we’ve done.”
In 1998 the Foundation implemented a wine lecturer exchange between Charles Sturt University and Blass’s former alma mater Wurzburg Wine University in Germany, which continued annually until scuppered for the time being by COVID. Then in 2000 an event was started by pioneer Canberra winemaker Ken Helm that lifted the profile of both the Foundation as sponsor and what was probably Blass’s favourite grape variety, the International Riesling Challenge.
Alongside it, Wolf Blass, who was chairman of judges for the first six years, made a separate, personal Wolf Blass Award that recognised major contributions to the development and promotion of riesling in Australia. It has since recognised riesling masters such as Peter Lehmann, Brian Barry, Brian Croser, Jeffrey Grosset and John Vickery. This year it went to the Barry family at Jim Barry Wines.
“Being German, I believe in riesling,” Blass said at the time. “Australia needs a benchmark white wine, but unfortunately the Australian wine industry has not seen fit to promote one of its best products.”
Another major, and expensive, project was completion of an oral history of Australia’s wine industry, done in conjunction with the National Wine Centre and begun in 2000. In 2007 noted wine writer Max Allen was commissioned to write a book, The History of Australian Wine, based on the interviews with wine industry pioneers and the key characters who’d built Australia’s wine and grape growing industry. The book was released in 2012 in conjunction with the Foundation, the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia, Yalumba Wines and Treasury Wine Estates.
Blass’s Foundation worked successfully behind the scenes when it funded the Wine Federation of Australia’s bid to get a $50 million GST refund over five years from the Federal Government, working in conjunction with Liberal Senator Anne Ruston.
But it wasn’t until 2018 that Blass saw the culmination of a long-held dream, the opening of a wine museum to display his enormous collection of wine memorabilia. It was his late wife Shirley Nyberg-Blass who suggested it be located in Hahndorf, appropriate due to Wolf’s German heritage. Shirley would play a critical role not only in discovering the site, a former bank building, but also in supervising its modern extension and redevelopment.
The property included a tiny, original stone schoolroom in need of major repair – now repurposed as a demonstration cooperage, and a light and airy wine bar and tasting area was built around it, leading to an outdoor terrace. This is also home to a café serving copious platters and pizzas, simple and delicious fare and one of the more civilised and peaceful corners of the Hahndorf tourist complex.
A key feature is the 7m long Wolfie’s Horse Bar with a massive swag of silver trophies testament to Blass’s love of horse racing and, not surprisingly, an excellent wine list. He never managed to win the Melbourne Cup, but he did the next best thing and bought the first Cup ever presented in 1865, which is on display nearby.
Close by, too, is an ornate case celebrating his four Jimmy Watson wins, still the only winemaker to win three in a row from 1974-6 – with another in 1999, just to show he was still on top of his game.
Further towards the front of the building, is the main museum with all of Wolf Blass’s memorabilia, from 70 massive scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings and documents to ceremonial gowns and display cases documenting his whole career.
It would be easy for a sceptical visitor to say, well, it’s all just about Wolf. Of course it is. Remember, this is the supreme marketer, probably the best the Australian wine industry ever had. Famous for his bow ties, the Yellow Rolls Royce that got wrapped around a telegraph pole, who saw his wine company grow from a simple shed to an international behemoth.
When you look closely, though, you see that it is also a story of the Australian wine industry, such has been his influence across so many companies, the development of wine styles, the way he has nurtured the industry and helped define its future here and internationally. If it’s all about Wolf – and for him it is all about Wolf the man, not the extrovert marketer, not the brand – that’s exactly as it should be.
“I had the privilege to be here at the right time, when we could turn Australia around from being a beer drinking nation,” Blass says. “I’m very satisfied personally that I’m giving something back after all that Australia has given me. I’ve achieved everything that a person can achieve professionally and now I’m just going on enjoying life in the hope the industry will get its act together and collectively move forward.”
The Blass legacy is now secure. His Foundation, through Blass’s astute investments, is now worth $11 million and has many more projects under way.
“I’d like the legacy of Wolf Blass to continue forever,” he says. “I’ll continue pumping money into it during my lifetime, I have a very strong team around me that will be replaced and renewed as necessary, there are trustees in place, so there will be no problems about its continuing.”
Well, that’s definitely something to raise a glass to.