WA wine veteran a rare vintage
WA has lost one of its oldest citizens with the death this week of Swan Valley vigneron Joe Zekulich, aged 107.
Mr Zekulich arrived in Fremantle in 1924 as a 16-year-old Croatian migrant who spoke no English, had no money but was the financial lifeline to his destitute family back home.
He spent years on the Goldfields before returning to Perth and making a name for himself in the State's fledgling viticulture industry.
To honour his contribution, Mr Zekulich was inducted into the Royal Agricultural Society's Hall of Fame in 2005 - the first viticulturist to be awarded the honour - and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the WA Citizen of the Year awards.
In 2012, he was also honoured with a Medal of the Order of Australia.
But perhaps his greatest achievement was his 82-year marriage to wife Rose.
Until Rose's death last November, aged 99, they were considered to be the longest-married couple in Austral- asia.
In a 2011 interview with _The West Australian _, the couple recalled how their epic romance began with a stolen kiss in the cellar of Mrs Zekulich's parents' home in the Swan Valley in 1930.
"Joe kissed me and said, 'I want to marry you', and I said, 'Well, I knew that'," Mrs Zekulich said. "And that was the proposal.
"We met the day he arrived in Australia and I thought he was funny looking because he wore a cap."
When they tied the knot on May 25, 1931, Mr Zekulich paid for two taxis to take the bridal party from the Swan Valley to St Brigid's Catholic Church in Midland - Mrs Zekulich's first ride in a car.
Mr Zekulich's son Michael, a former journalist with _The West Australian _, said that right to the end, family remained the most important thing in his life.
Michael Zekulich wrote a book about his father and said yesterday that its title So Little, So Much summed up his father's life perfectly.
Mr Zekulich had four children, 13 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.
His funeral will be held tomorrow.
