I am afraid, dear reader, that I am going to have to disappoint you. It was not the Count of Monte Cristo who presented this trophy, nor his alter ego Dantès. In fact, Monte Cristo is a Cypriot cream sherry imported by PB Burgoyne, a British wine importer.
As a young man Burgoyne went through various jobs in the West Country before landing a position with an Exeter-based wine merchant. After gaining experience with this company, he went on to a management role with a London wine merchant. In 1871 his aunt mentioned to Dr AC Kelly that her nephew would make an excellent agent for the wines produced by his company, Tintara, located in McLaren Vale, South Australia. Today Tintara is famed for holding the oldest known bottle of Australian wine, produced in 1867. For the first ten years or so business was difficult. The company became insolvent at one point before an injection of capital by Sir Walton Watson Hughes, who became a partner.
The Burgoyne company became part of the EMU Wine Company in 1956 - see an earlier article about the Emu Trophy - and eventually both companies became part of Thomas Hardy. Today all these brands are owned by Accolade Wines, a world leader in wine production and distribution owning many famous brands. In 2018 this business was acquired by The Carlyle Group, a US-based multi-national private equity firm.
When both the Emu Trophy and Monte Cristo Trophy were initially presented to the AMOC, Members were large consumers of sherry and I am informed that consumption is on the rise again. Today we are also fortunate to have Pommery Champagne as one of our sponsors, but I retain an affinity with sherry – especially in my wife’s homemade sherry trifle!