Barossa Valley benefits from special blend of German and English – plus some of the oldest vines in the world

South Australia escaped the phylloxera disease that devastated European vineyards.

Barossa Valley has some of the oldest wine grape vines in the world.

The valley – and South Australia – escaped the phylloxera disease that devastated European vineyards and reached Victoria in the mid 19th Century.

But Barossa vines have also gained from the valley’s special character that flowed from it being settled in the late 1830s by German Lutherans.

Over the next 150 years, these Germans became the  majority of the valley’s 750 expert vignerons who built on the European experience to adapt and blend their gained knowledge of Barossa Valley land and climate. Barossa isn’t a new-world wine region like Chile; nor is it under centuries-old restrictions as in Europe.

The Barossa wine industry developed differently from Europe where, traditionally, grape growers were winemakers. Although some Barossa growers made their own wine, most sold their grapes and partnered with 50 large and small wineries.

Entrepreneurial English and German settlers built the wineries and sold to the vast market of wine consumers in London through their connections. The English gentry sponsored a commercial wine industry in the 1850s and 1860s but the real growth took place from the 1880s. Langmeil winery near Tanunda (formerly Langmeil) is still on land bought by blacksmith Christian Auricht who arrived in South Australia in 1838 from Silesia to escape religious persecution. bullock dray. Vines planted in 1843 are still producing Langmeil The Freedom Shiraz.

Shiraz vines planted in 1847 by Johann Frederick August Fiedler on Lot 1, Hundred of Moorooroo (Tanunda) are still produced by Turkey Flat Vineyards.