Streets Strewn with Champagne: Melbourne's Secret Love Affair

Melbourne’s earliest days of farming and gold exploration earned many punters a fortune. What is less known is how these fortunes turned Melbourne’s streets into liquid gold. Champagne became the go-to drink of choice – even moreso than rum. For evidence, turn your eyes downward and discover bottles underfoot in the foundations of many homes and streets.

Champagne and Melbourne share a unique history.

Following settlement in 1836, Melbourne’s early days became marked by ambitious land prospecting, with early sales of land offering ‘squatting’ opportunities to anybody capable of running stock. Parcels were bought and resold at a rate that rewarded land investors with substantial profits and a soon-to-be booming economy. These land holders then sweetened the deal for potential buyers with champagne breakfasts; perhaps to encourage them to part with their money a little more eagerly. By the 1840s, the suburbs surrounding Melbourne were “marked with the cairns of champagne bottles” according to historian, Paul de Serville. Governor George Gipps, in 1842, described the streets as being “strewed to this day with champagne bottles”. A decade later, the discovery of gold would lead to yet another boom in both the new economy and local population, with thousands upon thousands flocking to the colony in search of their fortune. Liquid gold became synonymous with the prosperity of being a Melbournian and the optimism of finding a fortune. Champagne overtook rum as our go-to booze of choice and Melbourne became one of England’s most important customers.

Perhaps the most captivating archaeological evidence of Melbourne’s early demand for champagne is the number of bottles that have been recovered from ships sunk off of Victoria’s shipwreck coast during this era. In 1841 two ships, the Clonmel and the William Salthouse, were both lost trying to reach Melbourne

The Salthouse lay very well preserved, with a large portion of its hull and cargo underneath the salty water and silty seabed for the better part of 150 years. 12 years after its discovery, in an attempt to help preserve the site and some of the cargo that had been identified in the shipwreck, the Museum of Victoria – in conjunction with the Australian Wine Research Institute – hosted a public tasting of several preserved, unopened wines that were presumed to be champagnes. The bottles had been recovered from the shipwreck, completely silt covered, in their original wicker baskets and were remarkably well preserved; corks still identifiably printed with the word ‘Aÿ’.

In his latest book, Intoxicating – Ten Drinks that Shaped Australia, Max Allen recounts the day when, in 1994, he attended that very tasting.

“From my memory, there were heaps of people there, it was very much a public event which was intended to drum-up interest in the event, in the collection and the exhibition that went on there… I have such a strong recollection of being handed that glass of murky brown liquid to taste for myself.”

The champagnes, albeit significantly impacted by the salt water they were submerged in, were described by several of the tasters – James Halliday among others – as notably sweeter than modern expressions. It was this element in particular, that captured Allen’s interest.

“What I loved about it was the sweetness angle. Why does it taste that way? What does it tell us about the time?”

The bottles, recovered from the Salthouse (and one from the Clonmel) are part of the collection held at Heritage Victoria, part of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP). I met with Anne-Louise Muir, Heritage Curator at Heritage Victoria, who during our appointment set out four bottles with their remaining samples and relevant tasting notes. The wines themselves were surprisingly clear.

“For a lot of the time they were underwater, they were completely silted over…” says Muir, “…the Champagne because its corked under pressure, we think, survived a lot better… and the tasting notes reflect that and the colour does too.”

Muir brings out another bottle, covered by a heavy patina, from the Clonmel.

“We know that these bottles are Gosset champagne, in fact both shipwrecks held Gosset champagne,” she says, placing a more recent bottle of Gosset champagne on the table for comparison.

Sera Jane Peters, the curator carrying out analysis at the time of tasting, notes this conclusion was made due to the unique bottle shape and the marking of the word, Aÿ, on the base of the corks.

After pondering several crates of unopened bottles from the Salthouse, Muir comments on how an abundance of bottles have been found throughout the state over the years. Archaeological excavation of various land sites around Melbourne, but particularly those in the CBD, have found an abundance of champagne bottles in houses, building foundations and cesspits. The most famous of these is Little Lon near Casselden Place, where a cesspit dated back to the 1860s was found to be filled with bottle after bottle. Melbournians didn’t just drink champagne; they were physically surrounded by it.

Standing outside Casselden place, now encased by skyscrapers that are eerily vacant of occupants, I take a moment to consider the bottles we all reached for when lockdown was finally over the night of October 27 2020. It seems many things may have changed over the course of this year, but Melbourne’s love affair with champagne isn’t one of them.

“Some things are remarkably consistent,” says Allen at the end of our call. “This idea that people are prepared to buy into the magic, the luxury, the image of champagne…(it) still has this incredible hold over people’s imagination. In some ways it’s kind of a surprise that things are so similar now.”

Words and photography by Christina Kaigg