James Busby is widely known as ‘the father of Australian wine’, and his importations of cuttings from France laid the foundations for the industry of today. He also wrote the first viticultural manual published in Australia.
Born in Edinburgh, Busby was 23 when he arrived in New South Wales with his parents as immigrants in 1824. In Scotland he had gained some agricultural knowledge but, convinced of the potential for viticulture in the Mediterranean climate of the new colony, went to southern France to study vineyard practices first hand, residing for a time at Cadillac, in the Bordeaux region. During his travels he became convinced of the profitability of wine and the ‘strong probability’ of it becoming ‘a staple article of export, to which the colonists of New South Wales might be indebted for their future prosperity’.
During his stay in France, Busby made notes on the vineyards he visited and this may also be when he became familiar with Chaptal’s Traité théorique et pratique sur la culture de la vigne (1801), the preeminent text at that time. Busby acknowledged Chaptal’s text as providing the ‘most important part’ of his Treatise on the Culture of the Vine, and the Art of Making Wine (1825), and also thanked the ‘gentleman of high rank in the colony’ who had lent him a copy of Chaptal’s work in SydneyLacking the funds to publish his text, he made an appeal for subscribers in October 1824, and within six months around 70 individuals had each contributed ten shillings.
The book was published in May 1825 and for the next two years Busby was a teacher at the Male Orphan School at Cabramatta, where he planted a small vineyard with the aim of training young boys in the cultivation and management of vines. After losing this position in 1827 he worked in several other roles and wrote his second work, A Manual of Plain Directions for Planting and Cultivating Vineyards, and for Making Wine in New South Wales (1830). Written in a more personal and direct style and with the benefit of practical experience, this was regarded as a more valuable handbook than his previous publication and was praised as a ‘highly useful little work’ that should be read by every settler in the colony.
While the Treatise was inspired by the economic potential of wine in Australia, Busby’s motive in writing the Manual was quite different. Busby believed, as did many others, that wine was a more civilised drink and preferable, for health reasons, to beer and strong spirits. He was explicit as to his intention: ‘to increase the comforts, and to promote the morality of the lower-classes of the Colony; and more especially of the native-born youth’, this goal to be achieved through wine. ‘It is my belief,’ he wrote, ‘that no greater service could be rendered to this Colony, than to induce its inhabitants to cultivate the vine’. ‘An acre of vines,’ he added, ‘would yield a tolerably abundant supply of wine for a family’.[1]
His years in New South Wales had convinced Busby that the vines then grown were not entirely appropriate to the climate and he resolved to introduce grape varieties grown in Spain and France, taking as his guide the catalogue of vines of the Royal Nursery of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. He sailed for England in February 1831, taking with him a small cask of wine from the vineyard he planted; tasted in London, it was rated ‘a very promising wine’ though stronger than an ordinary Bordeaux.
Arriving in Spain at the end of September 1831 Busby travelled north, inspecting vineyards and observing different aspects of agriculture, and reached southern France in November 1831. From the Botanical Garden of Montpellier he was able to select most of the varieties listed in the catalogue. His route then took him through Provence to the vineyards of the northern Rhone, Burgundy and Champagne and he was able to add to his collection, for example, sourcing cuttings of Ciras (Syrah), Rousette and Marsanne from a vineyard at Tain l’Hermitage. The remaining stock was provided by the Luxembourg Nursery. Busby’s account of his trip, Journal of a Tour Through Some of the Vineyards of Spain and France (1833), demonstrates the depth of his interest in all aspects of vineyard planting and management and of winemaking, and the thoroughness of his investigations.
On his return to London Busby made arrangements for the cuttings, carefully packed in sand and earth in cases lined with oiled paper, to be shipped to New South Wales. Of the 543 vine varieties, 363 survived the sea voyage but those from the Spanish vineyards, sent separately, all perished. Planted in the Botanic Gardens in Sydney, in 1834, 334 of the 543 varieties were still alive in 1834, the most valuable of which were those taken directly from the various vineyards Busby visited, including the three from Hermitage. Cuttings from these vines were subsequently distributed to vignerons in New South Wales and other colonies. Busby’s public-spirited initiative thus provided the stock for vineyard expansion and resulted in the dominance of French varieties in Australia.
In 1832 Busby was appointed first British Resident at the Bay of Islands in New Zealand, and left Sydney in April 1833. He died while visiting England in 1871.
Image James Busby as a young man (State Library of New South Wales)
COPYRIGHT AND PERMISSIONS: This image may be used freely for research and study purposes. Further use may require permission. Please acknowledge that the image is from the collections of the State Library of New South Wales.
Author Barbara Santich, Professor Emeritus, The University of Adelaide, December 2023
References
Busby, James. 1825. A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine, and the Art of Making Wine. Sydney: R. Howe.
Busby, James. 1830. A Manual of Plain Directions for Planting and Cultivating Vineyards, and for Making Wine in New South Wales. Sydney: R. Mansfield.
Busby, James. 1833. Journal of a Tour Through Some of the Vineyards of Spain and France. Sydney: Stephens and Stokes.
Davidson, J. W. ‘Busby, James (1801–1871)’. Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/busby-james-1858/text2161, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online December 5, 2023.
Report on the vines, introduced into the colony of New South Wales, in the year 1832. 1834. Sydney: William Jones.
Smart, Richard. 2015. ‘James Busby’ in The Oxford Companion to Wine, eds Jancis Robinson and Julia Harding, 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Keywords
Busby, wine, viticulture, Chaptal
[1] James Busby, A Manual of Plain Directions for Planting and Cultivating Vineyards, and for Making Wine in New South Wales, Sydney, 1830, v, 8, 23.