Alessandro Romeo Bragato (1859–1913) played a significant role in the development of the wine industry in Australia and New Zealand. Early life and career Romeo Bragato was born fourth in a family of ten children to Giuseppe and Paolina Bragato on 26 February 1859 in the harbor town of Lussinpiccolo now Mali Losinj on the Adriatic island of Lussin (now Losinj). At that time it was part of the Austrian Empire but is now part of Croatia. His mother Paolina (née Depangher) was Austrian from Vienna. Bragato's early education was at Pirano (Piran) south of Trieste on Istria and at a technical school there. According to his family, Bragato then trained as an architect in Vienna and from 1879-1883 attended the Regia Scuola di Viticoltura ed Enelogia in Conegliano in the heart of the Veneto wine region. Bragato graduated in 1883 and returned to Lussinpiccolo where for a year he was an oenologist at the Provincial Association of Agriculture and later from 1 January 1885 until 1888 viticulturist and cellar master for the Jerolimic brothers. Time in Australia Bragato arrived in Melbourne in Victoria, Australia on the Hohenzollen on 31 August 1888. On 19 September before the Royal Commission on Vegetable Products he outlined a scheme of education and development for the Victorian wine industry. He visited the Rutherglen district and met with the vine growers there. He worked the 1889 vintage voluntarily with Hans Irvine at Great Western where he made 10,000 gallons of wine. In November, 1889, he was appointed the Colonial Government's Viticultural Expert and began to tour vineyards, publishing reports in the Board of Viticulture's Journal. For ten years the affable and popular Bragato was Victoria's wine expert providing support for the emerging industry along with protective tariffs, planting bonuses and other incentives. But with fellow junior experts Giovanni Federli and Francois de Castella dismissed in retrenchments following economic downturn in 1892 only Bragato remained to advise the legion of newcomer vignerons brought in on a wave of enthusiasm for the industry and with the promise of bonuses for new plantings. Bragato's advocacy was conducted in situ and accompanied by field demonstrations of planting and pruning. He typically recommended growers plant Shiraz (Syrah) mixed with Cabernet Sauvignon, perhaps also Malbec or Mataro (Mouvedre). The mainly British derived population of the Australian colonies were not yet wine drinkers in the European manner, so Bragato anticipated the produce