History
Jason Ford (Spooky) kindly provided this information from the Austin
College Yearbook:
"early this year a group of 14 Austin college members got together to form
a club which truly exemplified our college motto: through living we learn. This
club was know as ACWAC- the "Austin college Wine Appreciation Club".
The reason for forming such a club was that through sampling a large
cross-section of Australian wines, the members would develop an understanding
and, therefore an appreciation of these wines and other wines in general. More
importantly however, the club represented a group of friends who could get
together on a relatively formal basis once every two weeks to sample wines and
discuss any matters at hand relevant to any members of the club as a whole. The
club members ranged from those with a good knowledge of wine- such as Gecko
(president), JJ and Gook to those with absolutely no knowledge of wine, such as
Scrit, Blowie and Moses. Two months after the club had been formed, ACWAC became
officially recognised as a club through UNE sports union which gave us the
chance to seek financial assistance and the opportunity to hire motor vehicles
from the UNE motor pool. After various fund-rasing activities such as raffles
and car-washes, we were able to make use of a motor-pool mini bus for the
highlight of ACWAC'S 1990 calendar - the wine sampling excursion to NSW's Hunter
Valley. This trip consisted of much yarn spinning, joke telling, the occasional
drunken recital of an old Australian bush poem by a certain president, the
attempts of romance with local members of the opposite gender, occasional
flutters on notorious card machines and an almost indecent amount of wine
tasting. In accordance with the objectives of the club however, we did develop a
type of appreciation for wine over the course of this weekend away (such as the
mutual respect between Dr. Jurds and the Club)."
