M.D.s in Wine

Doctor John Middleton put down scalpel and black bag, shut the surgery door and walked out, never to return. He had grapes to crush. The occasion was sometime February 1982, with vintage at his Mount Mary property in the Yarra Valley looming dead ahead. Later that year his partner, Dr Peter McMahon, did precisely the same thing, when his attentions turned full-time to Seville Estate.

Those of us outside the medical profession are constantly amazed by its affinity with items fluid and alcoholic. My first experience of medical fanaticism with the demon drink was as a child
in Ballarat, where one local medico had a third tap installed at the kitchen sink. It was for rainwater. Not for general usage, mind you – it’s exclusive purpose was for mixing with the well-stocked stable of single malt whiskies which co-habitated with the port under the house.

Australian doctors have a unique relationship with wine. The story of Middleton and McMahon merely re-ran the actions of many previous Australian medical practitioners, and since the early ‘eighties many other doctors have followed suit.

Australian doctors have been instrumental to the Australian wine industry since its birth, when people like Dr Christopher Rawson Penfold and Dr Frederick Norton Manning at Sydney’s Gladesville Psychiatric Asylum made wine to supplement the diet of their patients.

Several doctors are credited with the observation that winemaking is the perfect marriage between art and science, adding a new and creative challenge to the applied biochemistry and microbiology gleaned from medical experience. Most medicos are self-taught winemakers.

The most unexpected aspect is the marketing, says McMahon, echoing the thoughts of countless winemakers across the land who to a person thought the difficult bit would be making the stuff.

One of the best known doctors in Australian wine is John Wilson, of The Wilson Vineyard at Polish Hill River in the Clare Valley. He agrees with McMahon that an entrepreneurial flair is essential to succeed. “It’s not necessarily so that any doctor can make a go of wine”, he says. “Many doctors who loved wine got into it and found it didn’t work for them, so they got out. Today they’re back in medicine.”

A certain degree of ratbaggery, showmanship and individuality is essential, he suggests, plus an grasp of the marketing phenomenon.

Despite such inherent difficulties, Sydney-based general practitioner, wine historian and now vigneron, Philip Norrie estimates that over 140 Australian doctors have swapped scalpel for secatur. John Wilson believes it’s a peculiarly Australian phenomenon that so many doctors have taken to winemaking, but doesn’t know why. “There’s a genuine interest in wine overseas”, he says, “but it’s much less hands-on.”

The obvious question is “Why?”. Hardly for economic gain. If you liken the America’s Cup to standing under a cold shower while calmly destroying hundred-dollar bills, try planting a vineyard. There is a saying in the Napa Valley, California, that the only millionaire winemakers are the ex-multi-millionaires!

“It’s hard to rationalise why you should leave a secure livelihood for wine,” says Peter McMahon. I don’t envy anyone, but I last played golf in 1948! It’s much to do with a love of wine and the challenge to make it.”

When he and John Middleton started experimenting with winemaking in 1964 they had no idea what they were starting. McMahon likes the entrepreneurial aspect. “It’s very satisfying to have planted the vines yourself and then to have bottled the wine yourself”, he says.

Middleton and McMahon met at Trinity College, University of Melbourne, where they developed their interest in wine, which appears to have paralleled their expanding knowledge of medicine.

“Medicos love their booze, you see”, says Middleton, “or else they are the most terrible wowsers.” He graduated in 1951 and two years later was earning a staggering three hundred pounds a month. These were the days when a sportscoat cost five pounds and a bottle of Chateau Lafite a horrifying two quid.

John Wilson says that wine was still part of the medical education process when he went through. During his resident year at Adelaide’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital further exposure to wine served only to nurture the strong grasp of the grape.

John Middleton was ultimately persuaded by his good friend and one of Victoria’s greatest winemakers, Colin Preece of Seppelts Great Western, to plant his first vines five kilometres south of Mount Mary’s present location, thereby marking the rebirth of the Yarra Valley as a wine area. Its previous vintage was back in 1921. With his wife Marli, he bought Mount Mary in 1971 and began planting the following year.

Finding equipment for such a small show was hard to procure, Middleton himself designed and built his own crusher/destemmer and press. Clearly, medical training knows no bounds.

John Wilson, who contributes regularly to another medical publication, still works a day and a half each week as a locum and also in injury rehabilitation. He says he’s much happier now that the polarity of his life has been reversed, with five days away from medicine each week. “You have to have a project in life – a superannuation scheme”, he says. “I’m one of those people who enjoys smashing rocks and pouring concrete, so wine is ideal. It’s a better lifestyle.”

Philip Norrie is the only doctor I know who entered the wine game through an obsession with history. He spends much of his time chronicalling the winemaking past and traditions of Australia’s medical fraternity and is due to release an exhaustive book on the subject. He also planted a vineyard, Pendarves Estate, in the Hunter Valley vineyard, currently home to 60,000 vines of various varieties, where he spends his ‘spare time’.

“I’m a sole GP, so I don’t take holidays”, he says. “Wine is my escape mechanism.” An intense, bullish man whose energy adds new dimension to the term ‘boundless’, Philip Norrie is also the founder of the Australian Medical Friends of Wine Society AMFOWS, whose first conference is scheduled for Sydney later this year. He spends every spare moment charging between Sydney and the Hunter, where I’ll bet he gives the grey Fergie a run for its money.

I am looking forward to the first release of Pendarves Estate wine on September 14 this year, to be held in the garden developed in the centre of the vineyard, accompanied by string quartets and doubtless also by a few well-chosen words on the medical virtues of wine.

The AMFOWS conference, open to members and non-members, is from October 30 to November 1, at the Intercontinental Hotel, Sydney. Admission for members is $300. The speakers include Sir Richard Dole, Prof. Charles Hennekens, Prof. Peter Wood, Dr Rodney Jackson and Dr Kevin Cullen. Enquiries should be directed to Dr Philip Norrie on 02 913 1088. Please login to post comment