"Tribute to a gifted Winemaker"
-At a cellar ceremony, Philip White farewells a hard-working mate who brought history to life-

Cuthbert Thornborough Kay lived from 16th June 1914 to 3rd August 2001. He was a gentleman and a scholar, and one of our last links to pre-war winemaking. His funeral was held in the 1895 cellar in which he’d toiled his days away: a simple pale room of whitewashed stone and creaky dry timber, with a door so low the pall bearers had to bend way down. A stiff sea breeze whipped the galvo and the lasses’ calves, and blasted up through the gaps in the floor. About a hundred of us sat there staring at Cud’s coffin.

But we celebrated him, and paid tribute to the nature of winemaking, and how its practioners take the gift of nature from the soil and the fire of the sun and add something more to that grape - something that was not there before.

Ged Kay, an ancient white-haired brother, took to the upturned hogshead, unfolded his speech, and transported us to the days of their childhood, sledding down muddy slopes, exploring, picking wildflowers and climbing trees and cliffs. He praised his brother’s dexterity at hurling fried eggs across the breakfast table - "he was always good with his hands - a good carpenter and worker generally; also a good pianist" Ged read. "As a young man he worked hard on Amery ... he ploughed the soil, cultivated and hoed, and pruned the vines. He was well known in the wine trade for helping other people, and he ran the Amery vine-growing and wine-making business very well for many years, making good wine. And he was a good and just employer. During the war he served in tanks, in the armoured division. He was of course a good and loving husband and father, and as we all know suffered a lot of sadness in his life, but bore it bravely. And now he’s gone back to that good earth which he tended so carefully for so many years. Farewell dear brother."

d’Arry Osborn got up next, and went straight back to school, and all those sly slugs from the fronti flagon. He wove a gentle brocade of yarns of square dances and golf, seaside frolics and arrant naughtiness, and fishing - until Cud decided he could no longer kill fish. d’Arry praised the assistance and influence of Cud upon his early winemaking forays, when he’d kick off the d’Arenberg vintage by walking up to Kays with two buckets of juice. He’d tip those in Cud’s tank, and take home two buckets of Cud’s in return, as it would be fermenting, and the yeast so transfused would give d’Arenberg a good start.

Dr. Bryce Rankine, past professor of winemaking at Roseworthy, grimaced at such grubbiness, but d’Arry insisted that some of the wines so made could indeed be drunk without fear. Then he praised Cud’s knowledge of the bird world, and the delight with which he welcomed a pair of blue-winged kites into his vineyard. (With modern spray regimes, vineyard raptors must be made from plastic and wire.)

Cud’s daughter Alice stood then, and talked about what a wonderful father he’d been, letting her watch his grimaces over the shaving bowl, and quietly adoring his mystifying work in the laboratory. She talked of how Cud always played the arch conservative at breakfast discussions, teasing his kin into the fields of enlightenment by the constant testing and challenging of their ideas. Mike Coates, Alice’s scientist partner, carefully explained how he was in awe of Cud’s scientific nature as much as his gentility, his rare sense of humour, and his impeccable timing.

"He took detailed records of everything", Mike marvelled. "He knew all about the wildlife about the place. He took a very scientific attitude to gardening, and he was a very intelligent man, very subtle and broad-minded, and you could talk to him about anything .... But those discussions could get very heated, because Cud loved to play the Devil’s Advocate, and that’s good, because he made you realise that your favourite positions were not as iron clad as you thought they might have been."

Grand-daughter Elspeth reinforced the image of the debate-loving Cud, "with an eyebrow raised and a sly grin, saying something outrageously controversial which he probably didn’t believe anyway, just to draw us into an argument." She reflected on Cud the historian. "Growing up here, it’s impossible to ignore the family history", she said. "It’s in the house and in the winery, and in the vineyards. But it took grandpa to make the history real for me, and he helped me understand how previous generations have built something for the future."

Wit Morrow then told us of the fun and laughter he’d had with Cud when they designed the Kay’s Amery label; and Colin Kay, Cud’s son, left us with a recollection of his Dad standing at the cream separator, winding its handle with one hand, reading a volume of Keats from the other. There was a fitting reading then, from the great stoic, Marcus Aurelius, and Mark Allstrom, the Unitarian preacher, recalled one of the family members suggesting that when the time came, nobody was readier to die than Cud Kay.

Once I was curtly summoned to Kay’s after having written that McLaren Vale riesling was not a great drink. The ancient Cud got down off the winery roof, took a broom, and hoiked out two or three old barrel flagons from beneath a vat. Their contents were burnished gold Kays’ Amery Riesling of about thirty years of age. They were delicious. He loved me loving those wines. When I asked how he’d made them, that sparkle lit up, he took the perfect pause, and said "By accident." There was nobody readier to live than Cud Kay, come to think of it.

We all went outside then, and toasted Cud as he left his beloved winery for the last time. The Vales looked utterly splendid in that crisp winter light, and Cud’s 1959 port did a perfect job of pulling the teeth from that freezing gale.