The Barossa Valley

When the Barossa Valley is looking good, so is Australian wine. And right now, the Barossa Valley has never looked better. Frankly, you’d say it was preening itself. The tall stone spires of its multitude of Lutheran churches have never stood prouder, its streets have never been better maintained and its vineyards are simply lavishing the attention they’re now receiving under the watchful eyes of their devoted owners and operators. While Australian wine is enjoying an unusually long season in the sun, no region is hotter right now than the Barossa, the first wine area most of us Australians ever committed to memory.

North and east of Adelaide, but close enough to get there and back for lunch, the Barossa has evolved with and become attached to so many different influences that what it represents today is genuinely unique. Its landscape could hardly be more Australian, yet the principal influence on its cuisine and artisan culture is Silesian, or what would today be called northern Polish.

While the Barossa Ranges or Eden Valley was largely settled by a squattocracy of English settlers who obtained large properties on which they built substantial estates, the valley floor became home to German and Silesian immigrants, many of whom travelled to Australia for its comparative freedom of religion. They instead created European-style villages and hamlets for their communities, operating small horticultural properties and bringing with them the trades, language and skills of their northern homes. You still see shop signs written in German in Barossa streets, while the local ‘Barossa Deutche’ is still spoken is some villages. Less than twenty years ago I heard of young fourth-generation Barossa children who spoke English with a German accent!

Barossa fare is on one hand proudly traditional, yet guided by culinary visionaries like Maggie Beer, has become one of the focal points of modern Australian cuisine, a crucible of locally made meats, preserves, pastries, local fruits and game. Poke into Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop and you’ll quickly cotton on. Remarkably, given its variety of influences, no cuisine better matches Barossa wine than its own. Funny how often you notice that with the world’s great wine regions.

It wasn’t until after the second World War that the robust, generous table wines we now associate with the Barossa really began to evolve into the styles we recognise today. The consistently dry, warm to hot climate of the valley floor is ideally suited to making the fortified wines for which it was largely known last century, while the cooler environs of the Eden Valley have come into their own in the last forty years for their ability to grow long-living table wines.

The valley’s first settlers arrived in 1842 and by the end of that year the Barossa’s first vigneron, Joseph Gilbert, had established his Pewsey Vale vineyard in the Eden Valley. The valley floor’s first plantings were the following year, producing the first Barossa Valley wines around 1849, but this was only a hobby and not a commercial operation.

Led by the first plantings of William Salter Saltram in 1844, Johann Gramp in 1847, Samuel Smith in 1849 and the arrival of people like Joseph Seppelt in 1851, there were 447 acres under vine in the Barossa by 1861. By 1898 this total had increased to 4,477 acres, responsible for 46 of all wine made in South Australia and by 1929 the Barossa was Australia’s largest wine producing area of Australia. Its production of 16 million gallons accounted for about a quarter of all Australian wine made at the time.

While the best-selling lightly carbonated and sweet Barossa Pearl helped rejuvenate the Australian market for wine, Colin Gramp also introduced cold pressure fermentation tanks to the Barossa in 1953, with which he revolutionised the fruitiness, quality and appeal of Barossa Rieslings. Given that he also made an excellent Special Reserve Claret in 1947 which inspired many other local winemakers, Gramp was instrumental in putting the Barossa’s name in front of all levels of Australian wine drinker.

Inspired by the small oak maturation techniques introduced to Australia by Penfolds’ Max Schubert, the next generation of Barossa red winemaker was led by Peter Lehmann, who modestly says he learned about red wine making at Saltram as he and the cellar hands taught each other. The legacy of great red wine he eventually left behind suggests he wasn’t long in catching on.

Meanwhile, at Leo Buring the legendary riesling maestro John Vickery was simultaneously making a name for himself and changing for all time the way that Australians thought about this German grape. Vickery’s legacy of long-living and steely rieslings which flowered beautifully after considerable time in the bottle laid the foundations for the modern dry Australian riesling, which makers like Brian Croser and Jeff Grosset have in their turn during in succeeding decades.

While it revelled in the red wine boom of the 1960s and 1970s, the Barossa was ill prepared for the chardonnay-led trend towards white wines that began in the late 1970s as Australians suddenly ditched red wine for white. Weighed down by significant fruit surpluses since 1977, the Barossa became so unfashionable it was near impossible to taste a 100 Barossa wine. Grapes were imported from the more popular emerging cooler regions to blend away its uncompromising warm-climate richness and character.

By 1983 things were so bad for the Barossa that one of Australia’s most influential viticulturists, Richard Smart, was predicting the region’s demise as a significant wine region by 2001. Two years later you could even buy Barossa shiraz in muffins! Nine percent of the Barossa Valley’s vineyard, including much of its oldest shiraz and grenache, was destroyed when in 1986 the South Australian Government initiated its infamous Vine Pull Scheme.

The Barossa needed somebody to save it and the person who answered the call was Peter Lehmann. In 1978 as Saltram’s winemaker he made a commitment to Barossa grape growers to take their fruit and make wine from it. He didn’t have a brand or a winery, or the capital to carry out his ideas, but that didn’t stop him. After the 1979 vintage, Lehmann parted company with Saltram to establish Masterson Wines, the company which has since successfully evolved into Peter Lehmann Wines Ltd.

Lehmann galvanised the spirit of an emergent younger generation of Barossa winemakers. The decade of the 1980s saw the opening of twelve new Barossa wineries, including Bethany, Elderton Irvine Wines, Rockford, Charles Melton Wines, Heritage Wines, Chateau Dorrien and Tarchalice. In 1985 the Valley Growers Cooperative launched Barossa Valley Estates, based at the old Lauriston winery at Angle Vale. Wines like Henschke’s Hill of Grace and Mount Edelstone, Charles Melton Nine Popes, E & E Black Pepper Shiraz, Grant Burge Meshach, Rockford Basket Press and St Hallet Old Block virtually became wine currency in the 1990s.

The success of these labels has inspired a new generation of sought-after Barossa brands like Torbreck and Greenock Creek, both of which were strongly influenced by Rocky O’Callaghan of Rockford fame. Like Turkey Flat, whose vineyards date back to 1847, the success of these new wines is based around the substantial age of their vines and the silky-smooth velvet-like mouthfeel of great concentration and power which they are capable of producing.

Saltram’s revival under Nigel Dolan with the Mamre Brook and No.1 reds, the new generation Blass reds made by Wendy Stuckey and Caroline Dunn, Orlando’s sumptuous Centenary Hill Shiraz and Penfolds’ Barossa duo of Bin 138 Shiraz Grenache Mourvedre and RWT Shiraz are ample evidence that the big companies have responded to the lead of the smaller vineyards with some excellent wines.

Today the Barossa boasts over fifty wineries and more than 400 growers. Whether they’re made from the Rhone varieties of shiraz, grenache and mourvedre or the Bordeaux family of cabernet sauvigon, merlot et al, its rich, sumptuous reds from their ancient vineyards are riding high above a tidal wave of international demand and publicity. Its Eden Valley rieslings are subject to constant attention from the trade and the media, if not entirely from the wine-buying public at large. Even the traditional Barossa floor white grape of semillon is being re-invented by its makers into a more approachable and fresher, lightly-oaked form.

While they’re presently a pretty laid-back and satisfied crowd, don’t think for a moment that the Barossa’s people are taking their present prosperity for granted. For like rural folk everywhere, they understand the cyclical nature of country life and have learned to enjoy the times when they are good. Find a moment to visit the churches and read on their walls the names of those who built them and whose family and community still sustains them with such devotion and pride. The connection between the modern Barossa and its past, reflecting the work that created it and the unbreakable attachment between the spirit of its people to their region will never appear more tangible.

Basedow

Found in the centre of Tanunda, Basedow is a maker of traditionally opulent and generously oaked shirazes and faster-maturing, honeyed and woody semillons.

Bethany

Owned and operated by the Schrapel family, former grapegrowers whose descendants were amongst the first to settle in the Barossa Valley, Bethany makes soft and approachable table wines in its gravity-fed winery. Its cellar door offers an exceptional view.

Charles Cimicky

Operating out of a unique castellated winery, Charles Cimicky is one of the champions of the Barossa’s rich, generously flavoured red wines. The Signature Shiraz is a regional classic.

Charles Melton

With the somewhat irreverent Nine Popes blend of red Rhone varieties as his flagship, Graeme Melton has helped to change the attitudes of Australian wine drinkers to dry-grown grenache and mourvedre formerly known in the Barossa as mataro. Melton opened in 1984 and his wines are more restrained and indeed better balanced than many of the newer ‘cult’ Barossa names. Here is another cellar door worth visiting.

Grant Burge

While the premier Meshach shiraz continues to escalate in price – and demand – the Filsell Shiraz, Cameron Vale Cabernet Sauvignon and Holy Trinity red blend are fine and accessible regional reds. Grant Burge has access to the largest collection of privately owned vineyards in the region and offers a first-class cellar door.

Henschke

This charmingly small and historic, somewhat cluttered and ramshackle old winery has become a shrine to drinkers of Australian red wine. Its wines barely require any further publicity, other than perhaps to add that the Keyneton Estate red blend continues to offer an affordable means to taste Steve Henschke’s red winemaking excellence.

Langmeil

It’s a recent addition to the wine drinker’s shopping list, but Langmeil’s first vines were planted in the 1840s. The five hectares of original shiraz plantings from these times and another two hectares of comparatively recent plantings 1846 have been fully reworked by ‘new’ owners Carl and Richard Lindner and Chris Bitter and since 1997 have become the source of one of the Barossa’s newly-emerging stars, The Freedom Shiraz.

Orlando/Jacob’s Creek

Although you won’t taste too many 100 Barossa wines here, this cellar door makes a convenient starting point to a Barossa weekend. Orlando’s premium Centenary Hill Shiraz shows the region at its best.

Peter Lehmann –

The Peter Lehmann collection of Barossa reds offers spectacular quality and value from the regional collection through to the premier labels of Mentor a blend of red Bordeaux varieties, Stonewell old vine shiraz and Eight Songs a stunning new shiraz concept. The late-released Reserve Rieslings from the Eden Valley and lighter-oaked Semillon from the Barossa floor are excellent examples of what the region can offer.

Penfolds

Although it’s only since 1993 that Penfolds has made a 100 Barossa Valley red wine, it’s well worth taking a look at the winemaking headquarters of Australia’s largest domestic red wine maker. The gigantic red wine facility at Nuriootpa is like nothing else on earth.

Richmond Grove

Sitting resplendent beneath the newly attached handmade copper spires atop its twoer and turret, the historic Chateau Leonay property is now home base for Richmond Grove, part of the Orlando Wyndham group. Its leading regional wine is the Barossa Riesling, sister wine to the Watervale Riesling under a similar label. Both are overseen to some extent by the celebrated John Vickery.

Rockford

Its collection of charming old winery buildings reflects the personality and character of Robert O’Callaghan, another champion of the Barossa’s unique resource of old dry-grown red vines. Rockford’s signature wine is its Black Shiraz, a deeply flavoured and silky-smooth sparkling red blended from a range of base wines of different ages.

St Hallett

Best known for its Old Block Shiraz, St Hallett is another reliable maker of generous and approachable Barossa red wines and refreshing, early-drinking whites.

Saltram

Home to one of the region’s best winery restaurants, the Saltram winery is no longer used to make the wine sold under its rejuvenated label. The red wines sold under the Mamre Brook and No. 1 labels are made by one of the region’s best makers in Nigel Dolan whose, father, Bryan Dolan, was also once the incumbent of the winemaking position at Saltram.

Seppeltsfield

A tangible and essential part of Australian winemaking heritage, Seppeltsfield is a sprawling but charming collection of superbly restored old stone cellars and other buildings, many of which are still used to store seemingly endless reserves of classic old fortified wines. Few wineries or cellar doors anywhere in the world could rival its scale and grandeur.

Turkey Flat

Although he still sells much of the output from his ancient vineyard to other small specialist makers, Peter Schulz has revitalised this property since 1990 to the extent that its wines are amongst the most sought-after of all in the Barossa. Its speciality is shiraz planted in 1847 and grenache.

Veritas

Although its winemaking has moved to Rolf Binder’s new facility opened in 1999, the Veritas cellar door remains in its rustic and atmospheric traditional home in Langmeil Road. It says much for the way he respects the traditions of the Valley that Binder modelled his new fermenters on old-fashioned designs. Binder’s signature Veritas wine is the Hanisch Shiraz.

Yalumba

Another Barossa landmark, Yalumba reflects the anglicised component of the region’s heritage. Founded in 1849 by Samuel Smith, actually the gardener of George Fife Angas, chairman of the colony’s founding South Australian Company, Yalumba is presently one of the relatively unheralded classic makers of Barossa red. Its Signature blend of cabernet sauvignon shiraz is as reliable an Australian benchmark as you can find, while its ‘Growers’ range of Barossa table wines offers excellent regional flavour coupled with some finesse. Please login to post comment