STEPHEN CHAMBERS EULOGY
supported by SANDRA CRAWLEY

STEPHEN CHAMBERS:

William Bruce Chambers (OAM)

William Bruce Chambers, Bill, Husband, Dad and Papa.
Born 5th June 1933 in Rutherglen to Arthur and Peggy Chambers. 
Bill was eldest of seven boys.  Brother to Kenneth, Donald, Peter, John, Jim and Robert.

At the age of 7 the young Bill was sent to live with his maternal grandparents in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.  It was from here he attended Scotch College first as a day student and later as a boarder.  It was while at school Bill took up playing rugby and he openly admitted that he wasn’t very good, but his choice of sport had an ulterior motive.  It gave him the opportunity to visit his brother Ken who was a naval recruit at HMAS Cerberus.  Bill and Ken were very close.

After completing his matriculation (Form 5) Bill expressed some interest in joining Ken in the navy.  However, his father had other ideas.  Arthur had been watching what recent Roseworthy graduate Richard (Dick) Buller was managing to produce at Calliope.  His advice was for Bill to enrol at Roseworthy and give winemaking a go.  Being a dutiful son Bill did just that.  The course comprised of 2 years of agriculture followed by 2 years of Oenology commencing in 1951 and graduating in 1954.  Bill completed the course with first class honours and winner of the Gold Medal for a paper on the “Acidification of Wine with Sulphuric Acid.”

After graduation Bill returned to Rutherglen.  Not to work at the family property. He worked firstly at Seppelt and then later at Lindeman’s. In1955 opportunity to work at Stanley Wine Company in Clare as a winemaker arose upon the death of Bernie Knappstein.  Bill applied and was successful in landing the position. It was at Stanley; with the help of cellar foreman Pat Connors, that Bill honed his winemaking skills.  

SANDRA CRAWLEY – Quoting Peter Westy:

“The Bill Chambers I Knew.
I first met Bill in 1955, when I went to work at H. Buring and Sobels Quelltaler winery.
Bill was winemaker at Stanley Wines, Clare.
We soon became good friends, mainly due to our interest in wine, but also a love of literature.
I was married to Rhonda and we lived in a house called Prospect, at Watervale.
I think it was about 1957, that a schoolteacher was sent to Watervale Primary, who
we happened to know. Her name was Rosemary Wiesner, later, Lill, and Bill came to our place quite often to make up a four at bridge.
Bill sometimes came to Quelltaler for a few sherries before lunch. Quelltaler Granfiesta
was all the go then. One day, after a few glasses, I asked Bill to come home for lunch.
Rhonda had prepared a nice salad, but due to a certain amount of inebriation, I ended up
wearing the salad on my face. Bill decided to go at this stage, and went to work.
The staff couldn’t find him for a long time, eventually, there he was, peacefully sleeping in his car.

In 1958, I was asked to take Bill’s place at Stanley, as Bill’s father had died and he was needed
back home in Rutherglen.
We spent the 1958 Vintage together, and we had a great time, except that Bill didn’t keep
any wine records. He kept it all in his head. So I had to derive a records system so that I knew where everything was.
He used to wear a ratty old pair of shorts which had a large hole in the crotch. If he wasn’t careful, sometimes the equipment was in full view.
He was quite oblivious of that.I never met a man who was so unconcerned about anything.
His motto was “she’ll be right, mate”.

I didn’t see a lot of Bill after that, except when I was chief winemaker at Seppelt’s, and I
needed to visit their Rutherglen winery, at that time managed by Doug (Buzzy) Jones.
I always called on Bill on those visits.

Later on we judged together at various Wine Shows and finished up judging the Brandies
in Melbourne.

My life has been all the better for knowing this man.”

STEPHEN CHAMBERS:

Bill returned to Rutherglen in 1958 prompted by Arthur’s cancer diagnosis in 1957. Prior Bill’s return wine was being produced at St. Leonards in Wahgunyah as part of a partnership for a period. The partnership was wound up in 1958.  The loss of St. Leonards not only meant the loss of a winery but also a sizable vineyard.  All that remained was the small vineyard at Lakeside and an ageing slightly larger one at Rosewood; which has been planted in 1907.

With this challenge Bill, with a huge amount of help from the cellarmaster/winemaker Sid MacMahon, set about resurrecting the casks and open wooden fermenters at Rosewood in preparation for the 1959 vintage.  They were able to produce 5,000 gallons (22,700 litres) the first vintage.  Which Bill thought was very good given the low bearing nature of the old vineyards and the fact they only had a hand pump to transfer all the wine.

SANDRA CRAWLEY –Quoting Robert O’Callaghan:

Just up the road from Seppelts was Chambers Rosewood Vineyard, established in 1859. It was one of the few survivors from the glory days.

In 1964 the man responsible for carrying that legacy forward was Bill Chambers. Bill was important to the Rutherglen wine community; he was Chairman of Judges at the Melbourne Wine Show and dux of his graduation year at Roseworthy College. In the 1960s, someone of his status was different from the kind of person the new kid  at Seppelts would generally approach. His gregarious nature, striking smile and mop of curly hair made it less intimidating. He used the lab at Sepps to do his tests which gave me a chance to talk to him. He invited me to come up to Rosewood. The winery was relatively small; old barrels and vats filled the space in a very random manner. It had an earthen floor, and the air was filled with the aroma of old wine and oak that had taken more than a hundred years to soak into everything in that building. I spent some beautiful days in the winery, giving a bit of a hand and sucking in as much knowledge, aromas and atmosphere as possible.

This is another occasion that, in retrospect, made a big impression; a small, dedicated winemaker committed to doing things his way, making wine that had a small share of a specialist market. But he had survived when many others could not.

STEPHEN CHAMBERS:

It was at one of the district’s big social events; the Corowa Picnic Races that Bill met his first wife Catherine McMillan. The story is that neither Bill or Catherine had a partner for the Ball and one of the doyens thought it made perfect sense to pair Bill and Catherine.  Apparently, that night the “Ute broke down” meaning Catherine arrived back to her accommodation long after the Ball had finished.

Bill and Catherine married on 7th February 1962 and thus began a 24-year partnership which was broken in late 1986 with Catherine’s passing from cancer. In the intervening 24 years Bill and Catherine brought up 4 children, firstly Kay, Allison, Jonathan and finally Stephen.

All the while running both the wine and farm parts of the Rosewood property; with the help from Bill’s mother Peggy. 
Catherine concentrated on the farm (mainly the sheep) while Bill did the wine and Peggy the books and cellar door.  
Somehow, Bill launched a successful wine show judging career too.

 Bill went to judge at every capital city show which included a 21-year term as Chair of the Royal Melbourne Show.  A photographic memory may have helped on this front.  An example of Bill’s exceptional memory was relayed to me by Peter Matthews.  When they were seated together at a vigneron’s dinner tasting masked wines.  When the fortified wine was presented, Bill quietly leaned over to Peter and said “that’s a ’45 Stonyfell” and nothing else.  When it was unmasked it was indeed a ’45 Stonyfell VP, a legendary Australian fortified wine.

Whilst on the subject, an example of his leadership style is of the time that one of the panels (the group of judges) was running late, everyone else had left.  Bill was quietly sitting to the side of the judging tables reading a book.  One of the judges was tired and wanted to finish the class the next morning.  The Panel Chair was trying to cajole the judge in question to finish in a light-hearted way.  At one point the first judge stated “I’m leaving” they put down their folder and walked out.  Bill who had been listening in put his book down on the seat beside him and uttered “well I suppose I had better do some work then”. 
He picked up the clipboard completed judging the class and nothing else was said on the matter.

 In 2000 Bill resigned his post as Chair of the Melbourne Wine Show.  When asked for the reasons behind his retirement he acknowledged that his palate wasn’t as sharp as when he was younger and watched a few of his peers having to be pushed out rather departing gracefully. He wanted to leave on his own terms.  Also, he struggled to identify the characteristics of Brettanomyces (Brett) an emerging problem in the industry at the time.  He acknowledged this issue with Brett many years later at a Rutherglen Vigneron’s Show dinner being attended by the Rutherglen Wine Show judges of the time. When asked to comment on the masked red wine Bill duly discussed the age, variety and potential region and made a passing comment that others on his table that night thought the wine had Brett; but he couldn’t identify the characteristic.  At this point John Glaetzer who was sitting on another table piped up saying “Don’t worry Bill Brett wasn’t invented then”
alluding to the age of the wine.

Some people collect stamps or fridge magnets.  Bill collected paddocks.  Not only did he expand the size of the vineyard at Rosewood planting on sites nearby the winery he also purchased parcels of land as the neighbouring properties came up for sale

On one occasion Bill attended the clearing sale/auction of the Rutherglen holding of Seppelt.  He placed a bid on a block of land known as Hamilton’s and was the highest bidder.  Bill obviously wasn’t expecting to win as his next utterance was “damn I’ve left the cheque book at home” to which the auctioneer replied, “don’t worry Mr Chambers we’ll wait for you”.  The block in question was the same paddock Bill had swapped with Seppelt’s years earlier for 180 acres near Lake Moodemere. Bill’s land acquisitions pretty much ended around
the same time as the death of Catherine.

Catherine firstly and then Wendy later tried to get Bill to lose weight.  However, Bill was never good at restraint when it came to food.  We all felt that he was more on a “see-food” (and eat it) diet rather than reduce food intake diet.  Michael tells of numerous times when he was working in the vineyard for “Uncle Bill”. Bill would say “don’t worry about lunch I’ll get some for you.” He would then turn up with multiple pies and donuts far too much for one person to eat.  When Michael would say “Bill I can’t eat that” Bill would reply with “Don’t worry I can help you out” or “it’s not all for you”. Other instances Bill would return from town after getting the mail and papers with an empty box (or maybe 1 donut) from the bakery and a ring of sugar around his mouth.  Even last week Wendy was talking about Bill’s weight and the fact he was scoffing all the food. It could be said that Bill’s love of food and the scoffing nature of his eating came from the fact that he was one of seven boys or that he spent time at boarding school either way he ate quickly and always had an eye on what was other people’s plates. For us children we learnt to guard our food from dad’s thieving fork. Nobody was safe from Bill’s poaching as his granddaughter; Colt, found out when he reached over and pinched at tasty morsel off her plate. She was only a toddler at the time.

With Bill’s marriage to Wendy in 1989 new chapter in his life started. Not only did Bill gain a wife and companion he also gained a family with Wendy’s children (Sandra, Grant and Margot) and grandchildren (Katherine, Hayley, Charlotte, Lauren and Tom). Where before all the spare monies had been put towards increasing the property size now it was about servicing the export markets which started a few years prior.  Bill could be best described as a reluctant traveller preferring rather to stay at home and read a good book. He always enjoyed the trips when on them but complained in the lead up and revelled in the fact that he was home upon returning.

Toward the middle of the 80’s Bill started to employ additional people to help during vintage. Many of these were either studying or had recently completed study. The first person employed in such manner was Ros Richie afterwards there were nephews Michael and Brian Chambers followed by David Crawford. This continued into and throughout the 90’s but now with an international flavour with Corrine, Laetitia and Daniel to name a few. Many stayed with Bill and Wendy.  The last person to stay with them was Western Australian
(close enough to international) Tash Arthur (nee Heeley).

Bill also employed Andrew Smith as a winemaker in the ‘92 while he and Carol were establishing Warrabilla Wines.

With the beginning of a new century Bill stepped back from many of the day-to-day activities at the winery.  Instead preferring to concentrate on his study of Latin and Ancient Greek an interest he developed in the 90’s.  Also, he took a more active role in moving his various mobs of sheep from paddock to paddock. As well as feeding hay to the sheep throughout the Millenium drought. 

Even though Bill had stepped back in the winery he still manned the cellar door every weekend until the beginning of 2020.  It is not uncommon to have a visitor in the cellar door regale us about previous visits. A lot involve Bill taking the children off for a ride on one of the “horses” which were in fact ponies, while their parents tasted wine.  Occasionally it is the recipient of the horse ride who is at cellar door telling us of the said ride. One family’s highlight was when Bill took them out on the tractor and trailer to feed the sheep.

Prior to the start of Sunday trading many a Sunday would be spent down on the banks of the Murray River having a picnic, cooking sausages over an open fire or heading off to Benalla to have Sunday lunch at “Warilya” the McMillan family property.  Summer afternoons/evenings dad would take us either to Lakeside to swim in the lake or to the “Rock” in the Murray River (near the site of the present Federation Bridge).  Dad taught all of us to horse ride and many a Sunday was spent riding around Lake Moodemere or to Donchi Hill.

Pa-Pa as his Grandchildren, Kelly & Hayley, called him; along Wendy would go and watch the latest movie. Afterward they would all sample and rate chocolate milkshakes from various shops.  There were also numerous trips to South Australia to visit Sandra and Grant and Grant’s family and the occasional trip to England to visit Margot and her family. During Bill’s lifetime he had many long-standing friendships. Dick and Val Buller, Bill considered Dick to be an older brother. The Sutherland Smith family, firstly with George Snr then later George Jnr and his brother Peter and their families. Alan and Judy Watson of JC Watson’s Wine Bar Carlton.

Bill also had a long association with Viv & Chris Thompson from Best’s Great Western. Viv and Bill did a lot of judging together and Viv always stayed at Rosewood when judging in Rutherglen. Berick Segan who introduced Bill to the Botrytis/Asian food match with a 1920 Yquem no less. Dr Rodney and Elizabeth Barkman who doubled as the family doctor. Bon & Louis Jackson, in later life Bill and Wendy joined them for several cruises.  Much to Wendy’s chagrin Bill spent most of the time sitting in the corner reading a book. Mike Salter (Mick) with whom Bill had formed a firm friendship while at Roseworthy.  On one of Mick’s visits to Rutherglen, Mick, who was fond of the odd beer or two, persuaded Bill to join him on a “pub crawl” of the 3 Rutherglen pubs.  I think a couple got more than one visit.

In the middle of 2020 Bill was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  He was about to begin a series of radiation treatments when he had a significant car crash.  From the eyewitness description the accident would not have looked out of place in an action movie.  The fact that he completed the rehab and the course of radiation to return home in early November 2020 was truly remarkable.  Now Bill had a new addition to his life; a wheely walker or as he called it his wheely bin.  Later Grant secured a gopher which allowed Bill to travel to and from town via the bike track.  Most of his travels were to pick up simple grocery items such as milk, bread, and tomatoes.  Others though were so he could satisfy his long-seated habit of pulling weeds or to get more bones for the dogs, Leo and Rennie. By the time Bill moved to Glenview earlier this year we think that Leo had about 6 months’ worth of bones stashed. Bill’s desire to keep animals well fed led to Charlie the Cockatoo to develop a taste for chocolate chip biscuits which Bill had been sneakily feeding him during his many visits from Glenview.  We didn’t realise at first it was only after Charlie started to refuse the dry biscuits and we finally caught Bill feeding Charlie did we become aware. There may have been a bit of 1 for you and 1 for me going on.

While at Glenview Bill took every opportunity to participate in of the daily activities and outings as well as becoming a regular attendee at St Stephen’s Anglican Church, which is just across the road from Glenview. In July Wendy joined Bill at Glenview and they spent his last few months together there until his passing on 14 December 2023.

 Bill and fire had an interesting relationship mainly centring around Bill starting a fire and others stopping it. An example of this was the accidental lighting of the neighbour’s crop across the road from the house when setting off the firecrackers recently purchased in Melbourne after the wine show. Then dashing across the road with his knapsack to put it out. Or when Chilean Needle Grass was identified in the area, Bill went and acquired a small propane fire starter or as we call it “Bill’s Flame Thrower”, and even though he was being followed by our fire cart such was Bill’s gleeful burning of the offending weed that the accompanying men had to ask him to stop so they could put all the little spot fires out. Using the ‘flame thrower’ another time Bill once again lit up the neighbour’s paddock fortunately the prevailing wind blowing the smoke into the cellar alerted us to Bill’s activities. We seriously thought that we needed to put fire fighting on our job descriptions.

It was not uncommon for Bill to slip in an extra bottle if he thought the customer had brought enough. Also, Bill was a man of religious conviction and as such was very generous to any member of the cloth.

He was also generous with his knowledge and time to any member of the wine fraternity.   For the Rutherglen Vignerons it was providing a bottle for Bordeaux or Burgundy at the Rutherglen Vignerons dinner to others it was to provide guidance with winemaking issues.  Welcoming to all; providing support to Mandy Jones when she entered what was at the time a male dominated industry. John Griffiths when he worked in Rutherglen and Chris and Robyn Pfieffer when they arrived to set about establishing Pfeiffer Wines in the 1980’s.

Such was his generosity it was not uncommon for Bill to let late comers camp at the winery or for him to ring Catherine or Wendy to let them know that there would be several extra people for dinner that night often with little or no notice.

Bill was a one of a kind.  
Generous with this time, knowledge and the odd ditty or two.