BAROSSA
ANDREW CAILLARD MW, KEN GARGETT, AND TONY LOVE SUMMARY BY KEN GARGETT
The Barossa is unquestionably Australia’s most famous wine region. Certainly not the biggest producing district, nor the oldest (although not far off it), this is the name best known by winelovers around the globe. Rightly or wrongly, their iconic, bold, richly flavoured, idiosyncratic reds are often seen as representative of Australian wine in its entirety. That is, of course, very far from the truth, but what is certain is that many of its wines, especially the reds, are some of this country’s finest. Situated around an hour to the north/northwest of Adelaide, the Barossa floor is guarded by the surrounding hills, notably those of the Eden Valley. A number of towns are scattered across the region, including Nuriootpa, Bethany, Tanunda, Angaston, and Lyndoch. The cultivation of grapes and the making of wine dates back to the 1840s with the arrival of the Silesian Lutherans. A number of familiar names have worked the region since those earliest days: Yalumba was established in 1849; the Seppelt family had set up Seppeltsfield Estate by 1851; Johann Gramp founded his operation on the banks of Jacob’s Creek in 1847; in the same year, Joseph Gilbert planted his vineyard, which he named after his family’s property back in Wiltshire, England, Pewsey Vale; the Henschke family had planted vineyards in both the Krondorf region in the Barossa and nearby Eden Valley by the 1860s; the list goes on. This has meant that the region is home to many vineyards containing some of the oldest vines on the planet, and of the most famous red varieties. So far, the fight to keep phylloxera at bay has been successful, and so this incredibly precious resource is planted on its own roots. It is astonishing to drink wines from grapes harvested from vines more than 150 years of age, and what an extraordinary link to history this provides. Nowhere in the world can match it. Over time, the Barossa has seen the rollercoaster ride so familiar to so many wine regions around the globe – economic ups and downs, climatic disasters and great seasons, considered flavour of the month one minute and toxic dross the next. The region has had its fair share of depressions, disasters, and wars – perhaps not locally, but to which they have contributed swathes of young men otherwise essential to progress. Nevertheless, the valley has come through with unflagging persistence,
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The Vintage Journal
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