What will Erl Happ get up to next?
People talk of Erl Happ as a restless, creative thinker, always trying something new.
His vineyard, Misty Ridge, is one of the most northerly of the Margaret River vineyards. But Erl is developing land at Karridale, only 14km north of Augusta, trying a wider range of grape varieties than most – tempranillo and mourvedre, as well as semillon, chardonnay, verdelho, chenin blanc, shiraz and merlot.
He has temperature logging machines scattered over the State from the Swan Valley to Bremer Bay which takes readings every 15 minutes. His theory is that grape flavours can be critically affected by heat in the last month of ripening. Data from the loggers is being analysed by computer.
His journey to winemaking was circuitous. He grew up in Ballingup while the stone fruit industry was falling apart. Urged on by a father who wanted him to succeed as a teacher, Erl stayed in Kalamunda with an uncle, studied part time and looked after, in turn, a chicken farm and a service station in Belmont owned by Uncle Len.
“I slept in the oil room which was just big enough for a bed, a Sunbeam fry pan and me,” he said.
At the age of 19, he got a scholarship from the Royal Commonwealth Society and with Jeremy Dawkins, brother of John, was sent to North Borneo as ‘a sort of teacher’. He had spare time, so took an interest in local pottery – they made everything from cups for collecting rubber to sewerage pipes – and built his own boat.
He came back to Australia on an oil tanker, hitchhiked from Sydney and was bonded to the Education Department. In 1967 he was posted to Busselton to teach history, economics and English, and three years later married Roslyn, a biology teacher. They bought a block of land at Vasse close to the beach. They were able to gather clay, fire up a kiln and sell pots from the garage at weekends. It was a first step towards independence from teaching.
At the same time, Erl said “Wine was in the air”. The president of the P & C Association was Di Cullen, who made wine at Wilyabrup; the Happs visited the Cullen seaside home at The Gallows. They met John Hanley, noted wine judge who had been in Vietnam with Erl’s brother. Dr Bill Pannell, founder of Moss Wood, delivered their first two children. The Happs carried out kitchen experiments with sultana grapes grown in the backyard and unsuccessfully tried to grow cabernet in beachfront sand.
After eight years in the house, they sold it for the sort of substantial profit the South-West boom had started producing and went looking for land that would grow grapes. Erl dug holes, tested soil. The average price for open pasture was $300 an acre, $100 an acre for bush. The Department of Agriculture by then was saying you had to have at least 60 acres for a vineyard and he wasn’t sure he could afford that much.
Then he found Harry Mewett, who had taken over 55 acres originally set aside as common grazing and wood gathering for settlers on Commonage Road. Erl offered $8,000 and the owner and the owner-to-be, without a title between them, had a deal. It had gravel at the top, clay at the bottom (still used by the pottery) and was perched on its high ridge above and within easy reach of ever-expanding Dunsborough.
