Wilson Vineyard | NEWS AND TRIVIA FILE

John is known locally as the "last of the Poles". He is the last person living in Polish Hill River who is a descendant of the early Polish settlers. He is 84 and lives in the cottage that his grandfather built. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the families that have lived in Polish Hill River this century.

From 1860 until the turn of the century there were more than 30 houses throughout the Polish Valley, each one occupied by a Pole. On a drive around the Valley with John he is able to give a running commentary on who lived where, "Nykiels over there, Modistachs here, Waymans down the road"; and coloured with little snippets of family history such as "she married a Polomka and went to live in Peterborough"; John can tell numerous tales about the triumphs and tragedies of the families - the Borowickis, the Drulas, Malychas and Pawelskis are a few others.

These families had migrated from Poland in the 1850s and had settled in this area because of its proximity to the Sevenhill Jesuits. They were all strongly religious people, but Sevenhill had been established by Germans and Austrians who spoke no Polish. Ultimately the Poles had to build their own church and bring their own priest out from Poland.

In this close community English, was rarely spoken. The men had to travel out of the area to work on farms, drive bullock teams, and do contracting work such as well-sinking, and it seems that they quickly learnt English. There was no need for the women to leave the Valley; they stayed home to tend the gardens and the animals, and look after the children; they spoke little English. Even by the turn of the century Polish was still spoken by most families at home. John Rucioch could not speak a word of English when he started school; he still spoke Polish at home until his mother died about 1960.

The interesting thing about the Polish that was spoken in this community was that it was an ancient dialect which has since died out in Poland. In time some Polish academics who had come to Australia in post-war wave of migration, made contact with John and a few other old descendants of the early settlers. For them it was a discovery not unlike a professor of English discovering a lost colony in South America, speaking Chaucer!

For the first few years of operation of the Burra Mine the copper ore was carted by bullock teams to Port Adelaide. From 1849-50 a new route was taken to Port Wakefield. Initially bullock teams were used but later, mule trains were used with the animals carrying the load on panniers across their backs. In 1857 the railway from Adelaide reached Gawler, and the ore was then sent there.

Officially the line of road was through Mintaro and Leasingham, and was responsible for the prosperity of these centres at the time. Evidence has emerged that at least in the first year or two of this traffic, that an alternative route existed to the north via Penwortham and what is now Polish Hill River. The present Polish Hill River Road stands testimony to this traffic, its waving diagonal course out of character with a perfect grid layout of land that was surveyed in 1842. Burra-historian Ian Auhl has helped clarify this matter by passing on a copy from the "South Australian Register" of January 13 1851, in which one W. A. Cawthorne vividly describes a journey from Port Wakefield to Burra on the weekly horse-cart, camping overnight at Penwortham, and then crossing the broad valley of the Hill River en-route to Burra the next morning.

Old-timers talk of one spot on one Polish Hill River farm where the crop always grew thinly, early in the season, because a dray loaded with copper ore once upturned there and the copper in the soil inhibits crop growth.

There is an obsession amongst viticulturists for putting thermometers in vineyards, and adding the readings at the end of the season, to determine if one spot is cooler than the other. Frenchmen, on the other hand have an obsession for digging holes in vineyards and analysing the soil; their's is a less precise science because there is no way of quantifying a soil structure.

There is increasing awareness that the wines of the Polish Valley have far different characters to those of the adjoining central Clare Valley, and that whilst elevations are roughly similar, temperature variation is not a major reason; the answer ties in the soil. The Polish Valley has been caused by eons of weathering, on a rock formation which is sedimentary. The ridges along the higher elevated parts to the west contain some quartzite, but predominantly the formation is of hard bluestone-slate material; that on the ridges and hills is quite hard, whilst the stone in the valleys is softer. The Valley's soil is a product of weathering of this slatey material. We recently carried out some excavation work in preparation for a cellar where we are building the new winery on the hill; it has provided an excellent opportunity to study the soil profile.

150 - 450mm red-brown clay with gravel, including some ironstone, stones, and boulders.

450 - 2000mm sheets of rock, soft and crumbling weathered material near the higher levels, grading through to very hard material at depth - there are regular fissures through this rock in which fine seams of clay with root fibres can be observed; fissuring appears to continue well below two metres.

There are occasional patches of limestone found in the Valley, with occasional marble-like stones in the soil, both of which suggest that there was once a generalised limestone structure, similar to that found around Watervale now, but that it has been weathered away. As a result of this absence of limestone, and the high rainfall, the soil is quite acid, about pH 5.

The practical significance of these features is that gravelly soils have better drainage; even the Romans knew that a vineyard had to be planted in well-drained soil. The deep fissuring of the base rock facilitates deep root penetration and is important for the access of roots to moisture during the summer. There are also chemical factors which have a critical effect on grape quality, most notably potassium and nitrogen, both of which can be detrimental to grape quality in excess. Neither of these elements appear to be in excess in our soils.