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Annie took her place as a worker in the fields. Everyone knew how to milk the cows,
tend the vegetable garden and orchard and help with the preparation and storage of
food-stuffs. At harvest time the whole family worked in the vineyard, picking fhiit
fi-om vines which, as in Italy, had been planted in a direction to catch the morning sun.
The family was a cooperative unit, manipulating its resources and drawing upon
centuries of knowledge and skill.
Along with making their properties self-sufficient, the use of family labour also
allowed the Gervasonis, and many other Italian-speaking families in the district, to
produce and bottle their own wine for sale. Most vineyards averaging one to two and
a half hectares," sufficient wine was produced to satisfy the local demand which, due
to the numbers of miners and settlers from the wine districts of Europe, was relatively
high. With a Colonial Wine Licence (which, it will be recalled, permitted vignerons to
seU up to 'two gallons' of wine on their own premises between the hours of 6 a.m. and
11.30 p.m.) many ItaUan speakers operated small wine bars from their cellars. When
the district's total production began to reach up to 13,500 litres per year, extemal
markets were sought, (reported) sales to Ireland indicative of the wine's quality and
the business initiative of its producers; it was also an arrangement which promoted the
immigrants' culture to a world market. Carlo and Luigi Gervasoni each farmed
two-hectare vineyards which, worked with considerable effort, averaged 600 to 1350
litres of wdne per half hectare."*" A number of Italian speakers were also familiar with
the process of distilling lees or surplus wine to make brandy, both Carlo and Luigi
establishing smaU stills in their cellars."**
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