The world premiere of WineLine 3 Gold, released May 10 2025, marks the third in a trilogy of unique feature documentaries based on the Richard Hamilton Wine dynasty – The First Family of Wine. This time, the focus is Gold. No other South Australian wine company has engaged in such an effort to record their history in film. This 55-minute film, produced and narrated by Dr Richard Hamilton, tells the largely unknown story of the family’s involvement in the Australian gold rush during the 1850s and beyond. It unearths the intriguing sideways chapter in the Hamilton family’s history.

WineLine3 Gold

WineLine3 Gold is a 60-minute documentary film following the intriguing sideways chapter in the Hamilton family story. Following the great depression and drought in SA in the early 1850’s five of Richard Hamilton’s adult children plus their 19 children abandoned the family vineyard in 1852 and trekked across the 90-mile desert and the flooded Wimmera River to reach the Victorian Goldfields settling in Amherst where they tried their luck over several generations to find gold. They never came back and they and their descendants became part of the fabric of the Victorian goldfields’ community and Victoria in general. WineLine3 Gold, narrated by Dr Richard Hamilton, documents their journey, the challenges they faced and describes how gold was found and mined in those early years.