Emu Wines was apparently established by Patrick Auld in South Australia in the mid nineteenth century. In the early 1840s Auld bought some 400 acres of land on the rising ground above Magill, east of Adelaide. He built a house and planted vineyards. Two years of financial troubles forced him to subdivide the property and the vineyards that he had planted on the lower lying land. He then built a smaller one and planted more vines there. He produced wines under the name Emu Wines.

Emu Wines later relocated to Morphett Vale. Its interests were expanded to include a distillery. The Emu name became synonymous with Australian ports and sherries for well over a century. It also exported its own and other wines. Emu was first shipped to the Canadian wine market in 1926, into Quebec. Wirra Wirra wines in McLaren Vale, established in the early 1920s, were exported by Emu under the brand Kangaroo Red.

In 1950 the Emu Wine Company of South Australia bought the Houghton winery.

In 1976 Thomas Hardy & Sons acquired the stock of the London-based parent company of Emu Wine Co Ltd / Houghton Wines.

The National Archives of Australia holds an Emu Wine Co. distillery diary dated 1952-1968 (D2240), Emu Wine Co. labels 1932-65 (D737, S1966/6504) and trading results 1939-48 (AP5/1, 1944/4488)

References:
City of Burnside website http://www.burnside.sa.gov.au/about/history/streets/docs/pnames.doc
Wine Industry jobs website http://www.wineindustryjobs.com.au/public.php?page=empprof&empid=103
Churchill Cellars website http://www.churchillcellars.com/emu_fino.shtml
Wirra Wirra Vineyards website http://www.wirra.com.au/
Gismondi on Wine website http://www.gismondionwine.com/articlelist.php?grp=5

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