Maurice O’Shea was blessed with a remarkable palate. He was a master blender with a tremendous ability to identify quality and longevity in young table wines that he sourced from Mount Pleasant and neighbouring Hunter Valley vineyards, as well as other premium winemaking regions. This was achieved in an era when fortified wines dominated the Australian market, and very few Australians understood or appreciated table wines.

His blending techniques and sophisticated use of oak – talents learnt while studying oenology at France’s Montpellier University – were credited with producing table wines of enormous flavour, intensity and longevity.

Even to this day – more than half a century later – O’Shea’s wines from the 1940s and early 1950s continue to display the characters for which their maker was renowned.

Maurice’s father, John O’Shea, had died in 1912, leaving his French born wife in charge of the family’s business as wine and spirit merchants. Given this line of work and Leontine’s heritage, it is likely the couple discussed the possibility of Maurice studying winemaking in Europe. However, it was Leontine who arranged and financed her eldest son’s trip to France in 1914 at the age of 17.

Maurice perfected his French at Montpellier University for two years and, then, in 1917, he enrolled at the Insitut National Agronomique Paris Grignon where he studied viticulture and oenology. It is believed he then lectured in science at Montpellier before returning to Australia at age 24.

It was in 1921 that O’Shea, having just returned from France with a greater understanding of regional definition, persuaded his mother to purchase a 16.3 hectare property on the rich, volcanic soils in the Parish of Pokolbin, in the Hunter Valley.

Leontine extended the holding by purchasing two adjoining parcels of land. It was then that Maurice renamed the property Mount Pleasant.

It was at Mount Pleasant that Maurice began his pioneering work in table wines. He rejected the widely used Australian practice of using European names for wines, instead naming his collection after friends or royalty, such as Henry, Robert, Richard, Anne, Frederick, Margaret and Maria.

As early as 1922, Maurice exhibited wines under the Mount Pleasant label at national wine shows.

His success at shows established the reputation of the winemaker, whose wines were already bringing a party of admirers to his cellar.

In his book Hunter Wine (first published 1964), surgeon and winemaker Dr Max Lake, wrote:
“… Maurice’s success with wine was due in part to the fact that he was a true artist. He used wines like a painter uses colours and textures. He had certain aims and standards, which he constantly improved, and he spared no effort to achieve a desired result in a wine once he had formed an assessment of its potential.”

The esteemed Australian winemaker and Grange creator, Max Schubert, said in a letter to McWilliam’s Chairman, Don McWilliam in May 1990:
“ Maurice O’Shea did so much to convince us who followed him, that it was possible to make an internationally competitive Australian table wine and a lasting one at that …
“ Although I was never given the opportunity of knowing or speaking to Maurice O’Shea in person, the wines he left behind have spoken to me on many occasions and made me feel humble in their presence, not only for their all-round excellence but for their amazing longevity…”

Maurice O’Shea died of lung cancer in May 1956, many years before Australians were aware of the potential greatness of their country’s table wines. O’Shea’s memory continues to live in the legacy of the great vineyards and wines, such as McWilliam’s Mount Pleasant Lovedale™, he created and left behind.