Wines of the Barossa Valley
The beautiful Barossa Valley, located within less than90 minutes from of Adelaide, South Australia, and is world famous for its award winning wines. German settlers were the first to establish the Barossa Valley in 1842, in a small town named Bethany. It was these early settlers who originally brought with them some vine clippings from Europe and found the clay soils of the Barossa and the region’s temperate climate perfect for growing grapes.. The Barossa Valley is most notable for its production of red wines, and particularly for its excellent Shiraz wines. The Barossa|Barossa Valley|region|area] is now becoming famous for its refined white wines as well as its full bodied. It is in the lower Valley floor areas of the Barossa that produce the best reds, and the higher level areas where the climate is cooler, the soils finer, and yearly rainfall heavier where the whites are best grown.
The more notable wines produced in the region include Peter Lehmann, Stanley Lambert, Seppeltsfield, Elderton, Grant Burge, Kaesler, St Hallett, Yaldara, Torbreck and Turkey Flat. There are still quite a variety of boutique wineries throughout the Barossa still run as family businesses, as well as some of the larger corporate wineries.
One of the most notable wines to come out of the Barossa is the Penfolds “Grange”. The Penfolds “Grange”, originally made as an experiment vintage in 1951 by local winemaker Max Schubert has won over 50 internationally acclaimed Gold wine awards. The “Grange” is most respected for its quality to age well, and is a fine collectors item. A bottle of “Grange” from the original 1951 vintage sold at auction in 2004 for approximately AUS$50,000.
The Barossa Valley celebrates its rich wine growing history with a number of annual cultural festivals. The bi-annual Vintage Festival is the largest and most popular celebration of the Barossa Valley’s wine growing industry. This Vintage Festival is held in April and is a celebration of the season’s vintage. One highlight of the Vintage Festival is the Vintage Ball.
The Barossa Valley’s wine making industry is an important aspect of the region, and its close ties with its German heritage is still very evident today.
Why is Barossa Shiraz so Special?
The hallowed grounds of winemaking, The Barossa, is internationally renown for its great red wines and primarily its Shiraz. Shiraz from the Barossa is used in the production of Penfolds Grange, Australia’s most famous wine. As well as Penfolds Grange, Henschke Hill of Grace also uses a large amount of Shiraz grown in the Barossa.
The Barossa is located north of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. The Barossa is made up of two different regions – the Barossa Valley and Eden Valley.
The Barossa Valley covers a large area of land, starting at Kapunda in the south and measuring all the way up to Truro in the north. The rainfall here can be up to 50% less than in Eden Valley however The Barossa has the advantage of more fertile red-brown soil. Temperatures are generally about 2ºC warmer.
The geography for Eden Valley ranges from Truro in the north down to Mount Pleasant in the south. On average the land ranges from about 400 to 600 metres above sea level with a majority of the wine growing land located in the higher sections of land. Eden Valley has much rockier, acidic soil than the Barossa Valley and also enjoys about 255mm more rainfall every year. Temperatures are cooler therefore the growing season is longer.
So how does this affect the wine from these regions? Well to put it simply, these are great growing conditions.
There are about 550 growers in the Barossa, some of them sixth-generation Barossans. The total harvest each season adds up to a whopping 55,000 tonnes of grapes which has been grown over 8,000 hectares of land.
A unique aspect about the Barossa is that it has managed to avoid phylloxera This has allowed most of the wineries in the area to keep their original root stocks and has some of the worlds oldest vines.
Even though the Barossa represents about 5% of Australia’s national crush, the fruit produced is premium quality. The constant premium quality of wines produced in the Barossa makes them Australia’s most internationally influential regions with a large number of Barossa wines being categorized in the super-premium class.
Its easy to see why Barossa Shiraz is held in high regard amongst wine connoisseurs.
Follow the link for more information on Barossa Shiraz .