Gramp family's Orlando winery sold to Reckitts & Coleman in 1971; goes to French company Pernod Ricard in 1989
The entrance to the Jacob's Creek winery, in Barossa Valley, near the site where Johann Gramp grew his first riesling vines in 1847.
The Gramps were the first of the great South Australian wine families to sell to outside interests when their Orlando winery merged with Reckitt & Colman Australia in 1971.
The Gramps’ Orlando• winery in at Rowland Flat in the Barossa Valley had enjoyed major growth since World War II and especially with the broad popularity of Barossa Pearl that was followed by its sparkling Star Wine from 1958.
This meant more investment in equipment such as a fully automatic bottling plant. In 1962, to make a riesling similar to the moselle style, a new Steingarten vineyard was established. A fully automatic Mac wine press, together with a carbon dioxide carbon separator, was another big buy in the mid 1960s.
These purchases stretched the company’s finances so that, when Reckitt & Colman Australia showed interested in buying Gramps Orlando, those in the family who wanted to keep expanding saw advantages in the takeover, particularly on the marketing side.
Reckitt & Colman was helpful in introducing the Coolabah range that eventually came out in the wine casks, and in 1976 when Jacob’s Creek was launched on to the Australian market. That was the stage when Colin Gramp, who had steered so many of Orlando’s advances, bowed out of the company.
In 1986, Reckitt & Colman Australia. was attached to the multinational parent company in England. Four of Orlando’s directors, with a state government guarantee, bought Orlando back in 1988 but then sold it in 1989 to an overseas group controlled by French company Pernod Ricard, whose investment in the winery and access to world markets have boosted growth, the focus being the Jacobs Creek label.
The Jacobs Creek Visitors Centre was opened to the public in 2002 – near the site where the Gramp family story began when Johann Gramp in 1847 planted rhine riesling vines imported from German, after he had migrated to South Australia from the Bavarian village of Eichig in 1837.
