The Barossa Valley is Australia’s most celebrated wine region. It is home to some of the oldest vineyards in the world and pioneering families that have shaped the landscape of Australian wine.
In a region of over 100 producers, boutique vignerons meet global brands like Penfolds, Wolf Blass and Jacob’s creek. The Barossa Valley is renowned for rich, robust shiraz that stains your glass an inky purple. Lavish raspberry and liquorice flavours are laced with mint and bound together by lashings of chocolate and thunder. Plush styles of cabernet sauvignon, generous semillon and chardonnay also thrive along the valley floor. A long history of fortified production makes opulent wines loaded with fruitcake and spice. Young guns in the Valley are looking to the vineyard and exploring time honoured winemaking techniques to re-invent traditional varieties. Grenache is making a real resurgence and standing proudly as a single varietal as well as in GSM blends. Emerging varieties proving successful include tempranillo, viognier, vermentino and to a lesser extent, savagnin.
The Barossa Valley enjoys a warm, continental climate and wide diversity of terroir. Gnarly old shiraz and grenache vines interspersed with mataro in traditional mixed plantings are a living legacy of a grape growing tradition dating back to the 1840s.
A rich patchwork of soil ranges through deep alluvials on the riverbanks to red-brown and cracking black clays, sandy flats and powerful ironstone in the north. Centred around the townships of Lyndoch, Tanunda, Nuriootpa and Angaston, the districts of the valley wind through Williamstown, Bethany, Krondorf, Rowland Flat, Vine Vale, Gomersal, Stonewell, Seppeltsfield, Greenock, Marananga, Ebenezer, Moppa, Koonunga, Light Pass, Kalimna and Stockwell.
The Barons Of Barossa
Founded in 1974, the Barons of Barossa are a philanthropic wine fraternity modelled on European societies such as the Chevaliers du Tastevin (knights of the wine tasting cup). The Barons hold a formal declaration of vintage ceremony at the beginning of harvest each year. A large community procession is followed by blessing of the grapes and the announcement of the vigneron and winemaker of the year.
baronsofbarossa.com
Barons Of Barossa Charter
‘To promote and foster the Barossa, its wine, gastronomy and viticulture enterprises and to preserve and maintain the heritage, lifestyle and traditions of the Barossa’
[Ba-rossa] – Hill of Roses
Watch Stuart Macgill uncork the Barossa Valley
