Chateau Tanunda arises in 1890 from phylloxera in France and using Barossa's 560 growers for export opportunity
Chāteau Tanunda on Basedow Road in the Barossa Valley was placed on the state heritage list in 1994.
Image courtesy southaustralia.com
Château Tanunda, a significant winery established in the Barossa Valley in 1890, was spurred on by the opportunity for large wine exports when vines in France were hit by phylloxera plague. The Barossa needed a winery to coordinate the output of more than 560 small growers in the valley in the 1880s.
Wine merchant George Cleland, who had founded G.F. Cleland & Co. in 1883, based on his cellars and vineyards at Beaumont, worked with William Jacob of Moorooroo on setting up the cellars, distillery and bonded store that became Chateau Tanunda. They also attracted investors such as Cleland’s uncle Samuel Davenport and his wife Margaret, Dr E. D. Cleland and C. J. Horrocks.
With Barossa growers leader John Basedow and many smaller investors, they raised £38,700 to build the Château Tanunda Bavarian-style winery building. At a time of high unemployment in Australia, the Barossa had many skilled stonemasons available to build a large stone building.
The schisty bluestone for its edifice was dug from nearby Bethany and brick kilns were built at the front of the site on the Barossa Valley’s highest point, facing south over the first Barossa 1840s vineyards. John Basedow and his men took 11 months to complete the Australia’s first and the largest wine chateau – the-then biggest building in the southern hemisphere.
The winery could handle 100 tons of grapes a day, with growers paid a generous one pound per gallon. It was exporting 80,000 gallons of Château Tanunda brandy and 700,000 gallons of wine at £1 per gallon, on company-owned ships by 1902.
The chateau became further ingrained into Barossa history with its alumnus of wine makers including Kevin Sobels, Bill Seppelt, Jeff Mann, Stephen John (1972 Jimmy Watson Trophy Winner; 1971 Seppelt Dorrien TT147/71 cabernet made at Chateau Tanunda), Peter Taylor, Geoff Merrill ( Geoff Merrill Wines), Craig Stansborough (Grant Burge Wines), Robert O’Callaghan (Rockford Wines) and Kevin Glastonbury (Yalumba).
From 1916, the chateau was owned by the Seppelt family from 1916 but, when it lost control of B. Seppelt & Sons in 1984, the building was abandoned and neglected by new corporate owners Southcorp.
Its glory days had passed when it place on the state heritage register in 1994. The business and structure was restored by South Africa-born food and wine marketer John Geber who bought it in 1998 and added a small-batch basket-batch winery. Its wines came from more than 100 hectares of estate owned vineyards in the sub-regions of Bethany, Eden Valley, Vine Vale and Tanunda – as well as grapes from 30 growers across the Barossa Valley.
