By Mike Dillon
Wolf Blass nearly ended up living in Gisborne.
Just before he left Europe in 1960 with a few dollars in his pocket, he was about to accept a job making cider for a small Gisborne company.
An Australian wine-tasting in London changed all that.
"I tasted this Aussie wine and decided
I'd have to be perpetually drunk not to be able to improve this stuff if I had a hand in making it."
Blass settled in Adelaide and did more than improve the wines - he revolutionised the Australian wine industry, particularly the reds, before his company was sold to Carlton & United Breweries for $A590 million ($694 million).
He has finally made his trip to New Zealand, so far spending $540,000 on three blue-bloods at the Karaka yearling sale to indulge his passion for horse-racing.
Wolf Blass has been heavily involved in racing ownership for two decades, but has always had others doing his bidding.
"I've decided to buy for myself from now on.
"I had a big cull just before Christmas and I'll be doing things a bit differently. That's why I'm here for the first time."
Blass is superb company, yet beneath the jockey-sized frame and larger-than-life personality and humour, there is real flint, necessary in thoroughbred racing and when an entire wine industry is pitched against an immigrant upstart.
"I used to be six foot tall before the opposition hammered me down when I started out in Adelaide," he joked as he signed for the $240,000 Rhythm-Our Tristalight half brother to Danske at yesterday's sale.
"But I bulldozed my way back."
It was appropriate that Patrick Hogan's Cambridge Stud was selling the Rhythm colt - it was Hogan who got Blass so deeply involved in ownership.
"I bought a colt off Patrick in 1972, which I named Eion Prosit ["cheers" in German] and he was my first city winner.
"He won the Breeders Stakes in Sydney and I was hooked."
For Blass, there was no going back.
"The only time I've been losing money since is when I'm racing horses or divorcing," said the often-married Australian.
Blass admits to a close association with women. One of his great successes a couple of decades back was marketing pearl wine, which helped to make wine-drinking socially acceptable for women in Australia.
"I got women on to the bottle. It created a baby boom.
"My slogan was sexy. I marketed it as making strong men weak and weak women strong and got half a million dollars worth of free publicity."
As a international roving ambassador these days for the Wolf Blass company, he is a respected wine judge in spots such as Hong Kong and Scandanavia.
Blass spends a good deal of time in Europe, dreaming of taking one of his recent purchases to England or France for group one racing.
"Racing has become internationalised. If we don't look at these Down-Under horses taking on races like the Arc de Triomphe, we're crazy.
"I'd love to see Might And Power take on the Arc."
Perhaps the one to do it will be the $200,000 filly he bought on Tuesday night by outstanding Northern Hemisphere sire Lure from the American mare La Favorita.
Blass won the Brisbane Cup with Grooming, and learned the other day that the horse had won a $US50,000 ($92,000) race as an 11-year-old.
His best filly, 1000 Guineas winner Dashing Eagle, has been booked to Melbourne Cup champion Zabeel this spring.
Blass cannot move far without someone asking him about wine, or money.
"How can you become a millionaire?" someone asked him on Tuesday night.
"Get $2 million and get married," he replied.
You get the impression Gisborne was never going to be big enough.
Pictured: Wolf Blass wants to win big in Europe. HERALD PICTURE / MARTIN SYKES
By Mike Dillon
Wolf Blass nearly ended up living in Gisborne.
Just before he left Europe in 1960 with a few dollars in his pocket, he was about to accept a job making cider for a small Gisborne company.
An Australian wine-tasting in London changed all that.
"I tasted this Aussie wine and decided
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