CHAMBERS Rosewood Winery will mark its 160th anniversary this year with typically little fanfare.
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Sixth-generation winemaker Stephen Chambers and his dad, fortified wine legend, Bill Chambers, are full tilt in the winery and cellar door, respectively.
While Stephen earned his pocket money growing up in the Rutherglen winery, Bill, now 85, can be found at the cellar door most weekends.
The seamless succession has served this family well since they first migrated to Rutherglen from England in 1858. William Chambers leased a plot of land, Rosewood, so-called because of the rose hedge he planted on the boundary, until he bought land four years later.
The business survived climate challenges, big distances to markets and the discovery of phylloxera in Rutherglen vines in 1899.
Following the death of Bill’s grandfather William (grandson of the first William Chambers), aged 80, and his father Arthur just a few years later, Bill came back to Rutherglen from South Australia.
He had studied winemaking at Roseworthy Agricultural College in Adelaide and worked at the Stanley Wine Company in the Clare Valley.
“When I came back to Rutherglen in 1958 we were still selling our wine in bulk,” he said.
“Slowly, but surely, we started to bottle our own wines.
“Prices were very cheap for a long while there.”
Bill was a senior wine judge from 1962 until 2000, including chairing the judging panel at the Melbourne Wine Show for 21 years, tasting up to 350 wines a day.
He said the wine industry had been very good to him but there were traps for young players.
“Take a little wine for thy stomach,” Bill said.
“Wine is a wonderful friend but a very bad master!”
Stephen took over as the winemaker in 2001.
“I’ve basically continued from where Bill has left off, I’ve continued with the fortified wine styles, still using the vines Bill put in himself,” Stephen said.
“I can see a change in varietal mixes driven by climate.”
And the secret to six generations of winemaking?
Humbly, Bill said it was due to the winery’s size.
“We’ve always been relatively small; it’s always easier to hold a small place together than a big place.”