HIDDEN HISTORIES: French-flavoured wine with Barbara Santich

In June this year, Emeritus Professor Barbara Santich delivered a fascinating talk to the South Australian Garden History Society. Barbara has been kind enough to let us republish her fascinating talk on little-known Jean-Louis Edouard Bourbaud.

A little-known figure, Bourbaud was a French wine expert who came to SA in the mid-19th Century, and who also encouraged mulberry growing for silk production. Barbara's research on Bourbaud is part of a wider research project for the Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations (ISFAR), although the project is still in its early stages.
Find out more about his fascinating story below!

LOUIS EDOUARD BOURBAUD (1837–1883)

South Australia’s first commercial vineyard in was established on Kangaroo Island in 1837, with John Reynell’s McLaren Vale vineyard planted in 1840.[1] In the following years, vineyards expanded rapidly, especially in the 1860s decade, and by the 1870s vineyards were flourishing across the colony’s settled areas. Optimism reigned, following successes at the 1867 Paris Exhibition, where the Académie Nationale awarded South Australian wines a special medal, and at the Intercolonial Exhibitions in Melbourne in 1870 and Sydney in 1873. Despite these honours, the colony’s vignerons keenly recognised their lack of expertise in grape growing and winemaking. As horticulturist E. B. Heyne wrote in his preface to his translation of Le Vigneron Provençal, the ‘want of reliable information’ represented a ‘formidable barrier’.[2]

It was not so much written information that they lacked but rather practical and technical know-how, and their solution was to request government assistance to encourage people with appropriate skills to migrate to South Australia – not just for viticulture but for other proposed new industries, such as sericulture.

The request reached South Australia’s Agent-General in London, Francis Dutton, a fluent French speaker who, in a surprisingly short time, nominated Louis Edouard Bourbaud, recommended to him as ‘a man of superior intelligence and high respectability ... highly skilled in the French wine-making process’. As a bonus, his wife Mathilde was ‘acquainted with the process of preparing crystallized preserved fruits’.[3]
Bourbaud was born in 1837 in Cognac, a town of about 3,500 inhabitants. Little is known of his education and early life but it is likely he attended the local secondary school. He served in both the Crimean War (1854–55) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and, by his own account, had 18 years experience in the vineyards of Burgundy and other French regions. He had also served on one of the selection committees responsible for selecting wines for the 1867 Paris Exhibition and was a member of the National Agricultural, Industrial, and Commercial Academy of France.

Edouard – the name he seemed to prefer – Bourbaud was the first viticultural expert appointed in any Australian colony.

He arrived in Adelaide in August 1875 with his wife and three of his four sons (it appears that the fourth arrived some time later). Inexplicably, while providing free passage to South Australia for the family, the government had neglected to create a paid position for him, leaving Bourbaud to propose his own terms of engagement to individual vignerons who wasted no time in accepting them, banding together to assure him of an annual salary of £300 plus travelling expenses.

Bourbaud threw himself into the job. In his report to the Vignerons’ Society, just two weeks after his arrival, he identified a multitude of areas requiring attention, from vineyard management and harvesting to wine making and storage, in order that the colony realise the potential he envisaged.[4] He quickly became a prolific correspondent in the Adelaide press, submitting long, informed and erudite letters and presenting reports on such matters as the prevention and treatment of powdery mildew; the use of a densimeter or gluco-oenometer to determine the best time for harvest; the chemistry of fermentation; and the use of gypsum in winemaking, a French practice he did not recommend. Initially his writings were translated from his original French by colleagues such as E.B. Heyne, but it seems that within a few years he had mastered English.

One of his early priorities related to the alcohol content of South Australian wines. This was a matter of grave concern, South Australian wines being disadvantaged in the British market because of their high alcohol content.

For wines exceeding 26 per cent alcohol (about 14.8 per cent alcohol by volume) the rate of duty increased from 1s per gallon to 2s 6d. Vignerons had previously relied on advice from biochemist Dr. Thudicum that it was impossible to produce natural wine of such strength but this was brusquely refuted by analyses in London by the Chief Inspector of Distilleries, showing alcohol contents of 26–32 per cent in South Australian wines.[5] Both diplomatic and systematic in his report, Bourbaud accepted these results but also endorsed the vignerons’ campaign to have the limit for wines in the lower duty category raised to 30 per cent. South Australian wines, he pointed out, ‘are perhaps without rivals in the world for the production of wines with body rich in alcohol’. In France, in contrast, the tendency was to ‘increase the quantity at the expense of the quality and of the alcoholic strength’.[6] Nevertheless, the impasse was not resolved until 1886 when the unfortified wine classification was changed to include wines with up to 30 per cent alcohol.

Rapidly accepted into the circle of industry leaders such as Thomas Hardy and Samuel Davenport, Bourbaud was appointed a wine judge in early 1876 and unanimously voted an honorary member of the Vigneron’s Club.

In August he was appointed manager of the newly-formed South Australian United Vineyard Association created by eight of the most influential winegrowers, the aim of which to offer the public sound wines at a reasonable price as well as low-priced ‘working man’s’ wines, consistent with Bourdaud’s firm belief in wine as wholesome, beneficent and ‘the best guarantee against drunkenness’.[7] The range included light red and white wines, medium and sweet red and white wines, sherry and port.

Through Bourbaud, South Australian vignerons had access to the most recent French viticultural and vinicultural science and practice.

His series of learned and technical articles published in the Adelaide Observer and South Australian Register between July and November 1876, subsequently circulated in other colonies and collected into a pamphlet under the title Viticulture and Viniculture, covered such matters as soil types, siting of vineyards, selection of grape varieties, planting, vine diseases, vineyard management and pruning. Pruning, he observed, was effectively an unknown skill in South Australia and to encourage improved practices – which, incidentally, would reduce the risk of mildew – he proposed pruning competitions with prizes, similar to ploughing matches.[8] Some six years later, the first pruning match took place in McLaren Vale, instigated by Dr. J.G. Kelly. He also invented ‘Bourbaud’s Oidium Destroyer’ as a means of applying sulphur to the vines.
Bourbaud advocated the adoption of many traditional French practices, such as the preservation of fresh table grapes, picked them just before full ripeness, by storing them on a bed of dry straw ‘laid upon the floor of the fruit-room’, or on dry wooden shelves on a layer of ashes and bran, at a steady and low temperature no greater than 18 degrees.[9] He also proposed exploiting the full potential of the grape by making, in addition to wine, vermouth, brandy, verjuice, wine vinegar, ‘vin cuit’ (reduced and concentrated must), liqueurs and spirits.[10] He published recipes for medicinal wines such as quinine tonic wine, pepsin wine and sarsaparilla, all products ‘likely to benefit the colony’.[11] He supported his words with deeds, in 1881 presenting the newly opened Museum of Economic Botany with range of products demonstrating the versatility of the vine, from wine and raisins to grape syrup, grape sugar, grape jam, grapeseed oil, cream of tartar and potash, and grape charcoal.[12]

Nor was his advice limited to the vineyard. He created, and possibly marketed, remedies for toothache and headache, pommade and a cream for soothing the skin.

Venturing into other areas of agriculture and manufacturing, Bourbaud proposed remedies for ophthalmia and for the prevention of red rust in wheat, and the use of wattle bark as a dye.[13] He suggested taking advantage of telegraphic connections between colonies to share meteorological information in order to improve weather forecasting.[14] He made, and presented to the Chamber of Manufactures, samples of a jam that could be cheaply made, composed entirely of fruit, possibly substituting grape concentrate for sugar.[15]
He seems also to have been an active gardener, introducing to Adelaide gardens both French sorrel (Rumex scutatus), slightly less acidic than English sorrel (Rumex acetosa), and the French potiron, a large pumpkin with grey-blue or reddish skin and deep orange flesh.[16]

Bourbaud was a fervent supporter of South Australia, recommending participation in the 1878 Paris Exhibition with ‘a chart in relief of the colony, indicating the routes of travel, the rivers, the harbours, and the railways already constructed or in progress’, as well as displays to demonstrate the colony’s potential and the quality of its products, especially its wines, which he believed had their own individual character and deserved to be more widely known.[17]

He also facilitated an introduction to M. Milne Edwards, President of the Scientific Association of France and Director of the Museum at the Jardin des Plantes, for William Boothby, South Australia’s Commissioner for the Exhibition. It was a deep disappointment to him that the colony’s wines fared so poorly at the Exhibition, with no wine deserving more than a third class order of merit, and although Bourbaud’s wines performed best he resigned from the South Australian United Vineyard Association in October 1878, while continuing to manage vineyards for individuals such as Davenport.
His attempts to further South Australia’s interests and to foster greater French-Australian cooperation included a proposal that South Australian goods such as wool, wheat and copper enter France directly through the port of Le Havre instead of, in the case of wool, via England.[18] To encourage sericulture in the colony, he sent samples of local silk to manufacturers in Lyon, receiving a very favourable response.[19] He wrote to the French Minister of Postal and Telegraphic Services to request improved postal relations and facilities for the interchange of money orders.[20]

Indefatigable hardly begins to describe the man, a firm believer in progress through the dissemination of knowledge.

Deploring the colony’s reliance on wheat, in 1878 Bourbaud revived the idea of a Model Farm, adding an Agricultural College that would conduct experiments as well as provide practical advice.[21] This eventually led to the establishment in 1883 of Roseworthy Model Farm and Agricultural College, the first such institution in Australia. Further, he urged keeping abreast of developments in the northern hemisphere through subscriptions to the best English and French journals, with all relevant information circulated in a monthly review.[22]
Yet scientific acumen momentarily deserted Bourbaud in October 1879 when he mistakenly identified phylloxera in an Adelaide vineyard, probably a result of over-zealousness. South Australian vignerons had been fearful of its spread after detection in Victoria in 1877. Bourbaud was clearly familiar with the disease that had hit France in the early 1860s, and the insect responsible, having presented a paper on the subject to the Chamber of Manufactures in December 1878.[23]

Although he recanted several days later, after proper examination of the insect, he felt his reputation damaged and resigned his honorary membership of the Vignerons’ Club.

Almost immediately Bourbaud launched into a new business, the Franco-Australian Alimentary Company, making preserved (canned) meat products (this was just before the success of refrigerated transport in 1880). This was not an entirely new venture, Bourbaud having presented the idea to the Chamber of Manufactures soon after his arrival, but at that time his skills were more sorely needed in the vineyards. The canning industry had begun in France in the early nineteenth century, following Appert’s successful experimentation, but initially focussed on fruit, vegetables and sardines, with meat products becoming more significant only in the final decades. In April 1880 Bourbaud presented samples of three of his products to the Chamber, pâté de Paris, galantine de Paris and boeuf à la mode, all of which were very favourably received.[24] More products were added and Bourbaud promoted them at both the 1880 Melbourne Exhibition and 1881 Adelaide Exhibition, offering samples to visitors. Soon after the close of the Adelaide Exhibition, however, Bourbaud sold the goodwill in the business to L. Conrad, while continuing as manager in the short term. Conrad maintained the full range of fourteen French-style products alongside his own more English ones such as corned mutton, ox tongues and tripe for about another 12 months before they quietly disappeared.

Ever active, in June 1882 Bourbaud re-constituted the South Australian Winegrowers' Association and became its manager. At this time he was still advising individual vignerons such as Samuel Davenport and Sir Thomas Elder, and it might have been in one of their cellars that Bourbaud made, or supervised the making of, an experimental champagne, arguably the first made in South Australia, though champagne had been produced in Albury five years earlier.[25]

His sudden death in January 1883 at the age of 45, the result of an abdominal aneurysm, was as surprising as it was lamented, although he was reported to have been suffering from an unknown illness for two years. His widow, Mathilde, made a brief visit to France in 1883, in 1884 marrying Emile Ulm, an artist and later Bolivian consul in Melbourne, where she spent the greater part of her remaining 33 years, playing a significant role in the city’s French community. Three of her sons remained in Australia, the second son returning to France to live.
The motto ‘Work, hope and perseverance’ that Bourbaud proposed for his adopted country could indeed be applied to his own approach to life.[26] Obituaries lauded him as a man of genial manners and a cultivated mind, ‘probably the cleverest expert in blending and treating wines that the colony has possessed’, and one who ‘contributed largely and practically to our local viticultural literature’.[27]

Find Barbara's reference section below.

[1] Tolley, J. H. (2014). The first commercial wine vineyard planted in South Australia. Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, (42), 71–80. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.908050404466065
[2] Vine and Wine Making in Southern France, trans, by E. B. Heyne of Le Vigneron Provençal: Cépages provençaux et autres, culture et vinification, Montpellier, 1866; Melbourne: Walker, May & Co, 1868. Preface.
[3] South Australian Register, 23 August 1875, 6.
[4] South Australian Register, 1 September 1875, 5.
[5] South Australian Chronicle and Weekly Mail, 23 February, 8.
[6] Adelaide Observer, 11 December 1873, 3.
[7] South Australian Register, 28 December 1875, 7.
[8] South Australian Chronicle and Weekly Mail, 19 August 1876, 17.
[9] Adelaide Observer, 4 March 1876, 9.
[10] Adelaide Observer, 11 March 1876, 9.
[11] South Australian Register, 2 June 1877, 4; South Australian Register, 4 May 1876, 5.
[12] Adelaide Observer, 20 August 1881, 11.
[13] South Australian Register, 5 April 1879, 5; Adelaide Observer, 16 March 1878, 11; The South Australian Advertiser, 20 March 1880, 6.
[14] South Australian Register, 22 November 1877, 5.
[15] South Australian Register, 4 May 1876, 5.
[16] Adelaide Observer, 27 November 1880, 11; South Australian Register, 16 March 1883, 6.
[17] South Australian Register, 11 May 1876, 5.
[18] Adelaide Observer, 6 April 1878, 9.
[19] Adelaide Observer, 3 May 1879, 12.
[20] South Australian Register, 22 February 1881, 4.
[21] Adelaide Observer, 8 June 1878, 9.
[22] Adelaide Observer, 31 May 1879, 9.
[23] Evening Journal, 25 October 1879, 4.
[24] The Express and Telegraph, 27 April 1880, 2.
[25] South Australian Register, 3 June 1880, 4.
[26] Adelaide Observer, 26 February 1876, 9.
[27] South Australian Register, 8 January 1883, 4.