Minchinbury takes its name from the property named by Captain William Minchin who was granted 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) land in 1819 on his retirement by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. William Minchin was the Principal Superintendent of Police and Treasurer of the Police Fund in the colony. The Minchinbury property was largely undeveloped and primarily used to graze cattle by the Minchin family and various lessees. After the death of William in 1821, the property passed to his only daughter Maria Matilda. In 1838, Maria Matilda and her family were lost at sea, leaving no descendants of William Minchin alive today. Minchin’s brother, George, who resided in Canada, inherited the property.
In 1859, George Minchin, appointed John Nodes Dickinson, an NSW Supreme Court official as trustee. In February the Minchin estate, totalling 1220 acres was sold to Dr Charles McKay, a practitioner from Kilrea in Ireland, for £2100. McKay was already a landowner of 20,110 acres during the 1860's and one of the largest landowners in the area and it was under his ownership that the grape vines were first planted on the Minchinbury Estate.
During the 1860’s, the McKay family established a vineyard on the site as well as cultivating silkworms. By 1879 the wines from Minchinbury received three awards at the Sydney Garden Palace Exhibition.
In 1881, Dr McKay listed his extensive properties in the Minchinbury area for sale, due to financial difficulties. The advertisement by Charles Moore & Co Auctioneers described the property as follows;
“…600 hundred acres in various sizes could be sold in sections if desirable. Minchinbury embraces 60 acres of enclosed land, and planted with about 50,000 vines in full bearing…A trap dike of blue metal runs through the Minchinbury from west to east which will be invaluable to parties contracting for blue metal for Sydney Streets. There is also a hill of trap tuff, the deposit from an extinct volcano.
This is hard and durable stone used for some years on a portion of the Great Western Road. A tramway could be inexpensively made from the quarries to Rooty Hill Station. Fine clay for brick making and good building sandstone can also be obtained. There are three wine cellars, two sixty feet by twenty, on sixty by thirty, capable of storing one hundred thousand gallons of wine and wells, tanks and lagoons with never failing water supply.”
Despite this publicity, the land did not sell until 1895 when Dr McKay was able to sell all of it to James Angus.
The vineyards continued to be cultivated and produced high-quality wines. The new owner, James Angus, continued to expand the wine production, and he also established a quarry, a piggery, dairy and olive trees on the land.
James Angus began to expand the winery and continued to until the sale of the property in 1913. Angus sold the vineyards and cellar complex to Penfolds Wines but retained a major portion of the estate for his family, He was killed when he was hit by a train at Rooty Hill station in 1916.
Minchinbury was the second vineyard bought by Penfolds in New South Wales, the first being Dalwood, near Branxton in the Hunter Valley. With properties in New South Wales and South Australia they were claimed to be the largest wine producer in the ‘British Empire’.
Minchinbury was Penfolds’ first venture into sparkling wines and it became famous for its champagne. Penfolds stopped operations at the winery in 1978.
Many Streets name in Minchinbury derives from wine type, wineries, or wine regions such as Sherry, Pinot, and Barossa.
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