FROM THE GOLD RUSH TO LIQUID GOLD: CELEBRATING 160 YEARS OF BEST’S GREAT WESTERN
Celebrating 160 years in 2026, Best’s Great Western has some of the oldest vineyards in the country, with its origins in the gold rush and a rich and ultimately surprising history. Join Wineries of Victoria’s Belinda Coleman as she delves into the astonishing history of Best’s Great Western and discover the true story of behind this remarkable estate.
THE BEST FAMILY
The year was 1866 and Henry Best had just purchased seventy-three acres of land alongside the Concongella Creek, where he began turning the area into the extensive vineyard it is today. But the story actually begins much earlier, with Best’s Great Western owing its name and history to the Victorian Gold Rush.
THE GOLD RUSH
In the 1850’s the tumult of the Gold Rush brought an abundance of people to the state, all seeking to find their fortunes, with several thousand finding a place along the Concongella Creek and seeking gold in the region’s rich rivers.
Legend has it that the name ‘Great Western’ was born from these gold hunters. According to story, a gold commissioner was wandering the camps asking what the area was called. One miner suggested Great Eastern after a famous steamship of the time, but given this was the most westerly goldfield in the state, Great Western was determined as a much more fitting title. The name Great Western stuck around.
Joseph and Henry Best immigrated as children to Australia from Surrey, England in 1834. The family first landed in Tasmania but moved to Melbourne soon after. In the 1850s, the brothers moved west to Great Western, Victoria, with thousands of other fortune seekers in the Victorian Goldrush. The Best brothers were entrepreneurial types and saw more profit in looking after the miners’ requirements, so they formed a butchery business supplying meat to the miners.
FROM GOLD TO GRAPE
Both brothers moved their focus to grapes. In 1865, Joseph Best noting the early success of the first wine growers in the district, planted vines for himself with cuttings from the original St Peter’s Vineyard. Laying the groundwork for the Seppelt vineyard and wine production of scale in Great Western, Victoria.
In the following year of 1866 his brother Henry established his own vineyard to the west, named after the Concongella Creek.
Henery Best’s meticulous attention to detail, experimentation and desire to find the best grape varieties for his vineyard resulted in Best’s wines becoming well known in England and throughout Europe. That attention to detail and innovation is highly valued at Best’s and is still evident in all its wine production today.
SURVIVING PHYLLOXERA
In 1877 Phylloxera swept through Victoria’s wine regions, decimating central Victoria’s wine populations. But here, Best’s Great Western was at a unique advantage. Its distance from the rest of the wine regions caused their vines to escape unscathed. Where many wine regions around didn’t survive, Best’s Great Western continued strong and retained some of Victoria’s oldest pre-phylloxera vines.
Henry Best’s son Charles Best eventually took over the business from his father and continued it for many years, but ultimately, he didn’t have any children to take over from him and eventually decided to sell, with both the property and the business sold to Fredrick Pinchon Thomson.
THE THOMSON FAMILY
Ironically the Thomson and Best families were loosely connected before this day, with Henry Best and William Thomson both exhibiting at Melbourne’s Great Centennial Exhibition in 1888. Thomson earned a Third Order of Merit at the Exhibition, where he was featuring his success as a baker. Ultimately, it is unknown whether these two men met and connected here, years before they both became intertwined in the history of Best’s Great Western, but it’s an exciting possibility, nonetheless.
About a decade after the exhibition William Thomson purchased a vineyard of his own and began cultivating his own wines, allowing his children to grow up immersed in the vineyard landscape.
Frederick Thomson had grown up surrounded by his father, William Thomson’s vines and orchard, and the time came in 1920 for Charles Best to sell the Concongella estate and the Best’s Great Western Wines, to Frederick Thomson.
Despite the challenges that came his way throughout the process, Frederick Thomson relied on ingenuity, hard work and luck to survive.
Frederick Thomson’s son also named Frederick (Eric) Thomson became one of Australia’s longest working winemakers. Eric Thomson’s son Viv Thomson is a graduate of the acclaimed Roseworthy College and is the fourth-generation vigneron at Bests with more than fifty consecutive vintages under his belt.
Best’s Great Western owes its reputation and numerous accolades to Viv Thomson. With the winery now being run by fifth generation Ben Thomson as Managing Director and brother Hamish Thomson as Regional Sales Manager, this transition has continued to see Best’s Great Western not only survive but also thrive.
Images courtesy of Best’s Great Western