![]() ![]() Smaller wineries which specialise in wines made Barossa fruit include Tim Smith, Charlie Melton, Dutschke Wines, Glaetzer, Rockford, Kaesler, Kalleske, Ross Wines, Michael Hall, Langmeil, Leo Buring and Torbreck Vintners. Many of the wineries that are based here, such as Penfolds, Wolf Blass, Yalumba and Jacob’s Creek buy grapes from all over Australia and label their wines as South –Eastern Australia, although all four wineries have Barossa only bottlings too. Mind you, it’s not always easy to work out which Aussie wines contain Barossa fruit. Alongside the irrepressible Lehmann, three individuals did an enormous amount to spread the word about South Australia’s most historic region– Charlie Melton, whose wines include the iconic Nine Popes, Rocky O’Callaghan at Rockford and Bob McLean of St Hallett, whose Old Block Shiraz was drawn from some of the valley’s oldest vines. In the 1990s, the Barossa Valley rediscovered a sense of identity. If you drive up to the winery during vintage, you can still find them chatting and joking with Lehmann on his legendary weigh-bridge. The gamble paid off and, to this day, the growers have remained understandably grateful. Lehmann’s plan was bold, even foolhardy: namely, to keep the Barossa’s struggling growers in business by buying their grapes, despite the lack of demand for the local wines. Lehmann, a colourful, hard living, cigarette-puffing Aussie, was born in Angaston and worked at Yalumba and Saltram before setting up his own winery. The man who saved the valley from disaster was Peter Lehmann, the so-called Baron of the Barossa. In the 1980s, some red vineyards weren’t even picked others were turned into Shiraz muffins, the ultimate insult for an old vine. The subsequent boom in white wine left the Barossa, with its old plantings of Shiraz, Mourvèdre and Grenache, in even deeper trouble. Later, it found itself out of step with prevailing wine fashion, as people started to drink less and less fortified wine (a warm climate Barossa speciality) and develop a taste for cooler climate regions like Coonawarra and Margaret River. The Barossa suffered from its German heritage during both World Wars (they even temporarily anglicised some of the names in the Valley to make them sound more patriotic). ![]() Things haven’t always gone so swimmingly, however. By the early 20th century, half of South Australia’s wine was made in the valley and the Barossa was regarded as the centre of the Australian industry. According to James Halliday’s ‘Australian Wine Compendium’, Seppelt had become the biggest operation in Australia by the 1880s. The combination of Lutheran and British graft rapidly turned the Barossa Valley into one of the most successful wine regions in Australia. As well as George Fife Angas, various Brits established vineyards and wineries in the mid-19th, century, including Yalumba, Penfolds and Saltram. ![]() The German side of the Barossa’s history is only one part of the tale. Even Jacob’s Creek, one of Australia’s most famous wine brands, was founded by a Bavarian farmer and baker called Johann Gramp. Several of the valley’s most famous names – Seppelt, Krondorf, Basedow, Orlando, Henschke, Wolf Blass, Peter Lehmann, St Hallett and Leo Buring – have Germanic connections. More Germans followed, with many going into the fledgling wine business. His solution was to pay for three shiploads of persecuted Lutheran farmers to emigrate to Australia from Silesia. The Barossa’s German link dates back to the 1840s, when a newly-arrived Scot, George Fife Angas, needed workers for his sizeable estates. The German connection may also explain the Barossa’s lasting affection for Riesling, the classic grape of the Mosel, Rheingau and Pfalz. Barossa Deutsch is still spoken in the region and over the years Germans have influenced the names, architecture, food and musical traditions of the valley. To this day, that tape remains a useful reminder of the Barossa’s Germanic origins. I expected the album to contain brass band versions of things like Waltzing Matilda, but the titles were German, not Australian: ‘Trink, trink, Brüderlein trink’, ‘In München steht ein Hofrbrauhaus’ and (my favourite) ‘Wenn das Wasser im Rhein goldner Wein war’. (It was so long ago, that iTunes didn’t exist.) The music was a collection of oompah classics recorded by the Tanunda Town Band. The first time I visited the Barossa Valley in South Australia, someone gave me a cassette. ![]()
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