WINE WASTED

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 45, 16 November 1940, Page 4

WINE WASTED

Barrels Catapulted On To Roadway LOSS ESTIMATED AT £lOO “Roll out the barrel” —the populai war song—was given a practical demonstration in Grey’s Avenue, Auckland, one morning this week, when a truck rolled out eight barrels on to the roadway, and port wine of ruby tint, pleasant aroma and ancient vintage flowed copiously in the gutters. It was an unexpected occurrence, the result of a mishap. Mr. A. A. Corban, jun., Henderson, was driving a motortruck down the avenue. He had to swerve suddenly to miss another vehicle and then found a pedestrian in his way. He swerved the truck again and put the brakes hard on. Then the eight barrels of wine were literally catapulted on to the roadway.

Two large barrels of wine, burst at (jnee, and for a minute or so the gutteis on both sides of the avenue flowed inches deep. A third barrel rolled dowa toward the Town Hall till its progress was arrested near the foot of Cook Street. The other barrels lay where they fell.

Quickly an interested crowd of onlookers gathered. Chinese from the neighbourhood viewed the strange setting with their usual Oriental calm, while other onlookers tried to do something in the way of salvage. One man was fortunate enough to have with him an empty receptacle of the kind known as a “square rigger,” and one dip in the gutter half-tilled It. Another man tilled a lemonade bottle from a barrel as a souvenir of the occasion. It was found that in addition to the barrels which had burst open, other barrels were leaking, aud more wine was lost till arrangements could be made for complete salvage. A preliminary estimate made was that the loss was about 200 gallons of wine, the wholesale value of it being 10/- a gallon.

One effect of the deluge was to convert a large area of the avenue roadway into a very slippery condition, as several onlookers found to their cost.