GREEN HARDYS MAMMOTHS

History

Hardy's Mammoth was first grown on the banks of the Torrens River near Adelaide, by the founder of the Hardy Wine business, Thomas Hardy.  There doesn't appear to be any historical records of where the variety actually originated so Thomas identified it as different to its parents and gave it his name, making what we call today the Hardys Mammoth olive.

Thomas Hardy (1830-1912), vigneron, was born on 14 January 1830 in Devon, England. He arrived in South Australia on 14 August 1850 working a variety of jobs including in a butchery business and driving cattle to the Victorian gold fields.  In 1853 he returned to South Australia and bought Bankside on the River Torrens approximately 5 kms from Adelaide, where he planted ¾ acre of Shiraz and Grenache vines, two acres of fruit trees and built a wine cellar.  He bought more land in 1863, enlarged the vineyard to 35 acres (14 ha) and planted olives (Hardy's Mammoth), oranges, lemons, almonds and vines for raisin and currant production. By 1865 he was producing 14,000 gallons (63,645 litres) of wine and by the mid-1870s 53,000 gallons (240,943 litres) from his own vines and from about forty other growers.

And ever since that first crop back in the 1800's, the Hardy Mammoth has grown in popularity and has become a well-loved Australian variety and a great addition to the Treetops Plantation.

SOURCES:  State LIbrary of SA, History Hub SA, Sydney Morning Herald, Hardy's Wines, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 4, (MUP), 1972.