History within history for Hahndorf museum and gallery of history-making Wolf Blass's life in wine and beyond
Wolf Blass's museum and gallery' contains the 1854 Hahndorf German schoolhouse.
Images courtesy Wolf Blass Museum and Gallery
The modern Wolf Blass Gallery and Museum in the main street of Hahndorf on the Adelaide Hills opened with history within history. It occupied the former site of the 1912 State Bank building and within it is the 1854 Hahndorf German schoolhouse.
The museum cooperage was within the old schoolhouse and had a collection of original tools used to make wine barrels. Other artfully restored winemaking equipment were displayed around the rooms. Opened in 2018, the museum and gallery with a bar and function area were all designed by Wolf Blass’s third wife Shirley Nyberg-Blass and local architect John Ashcroft of BeyondInk.
The gallery also featured the history of Wolf Blass, one of Australia's pioneering wine makers and national characters. With Blass into his eighties when it opened, the gallery and museum, owned and operated by the Wolf Blass Foundation, had a 60-year career of trophies and memorabilia to draw on for displays.
Many of Blass’s personal achievements and milestones were contained in 73 scrapbooks featuring newspaper clippings, photos, and items from past decades. The seven-metres-long Wolfie’s Horse Bar showed trophies from other of Blass interests – horse racing. Among many prized possessions was the 1865 Melbourne Cup trophy. Other parts of the building had cabinets full of football, cricket and skiing memorabilia.
Wolf Blass – full name Wolfgang Franz Otto Blass – was renowned for pioneering wine styles and introducing quality wine to the predominantly beer drinking society in Australia. Born in East Germany in 1934, Blass migrated to South Australia in 1961 after spending more than a decade working in the European wine industry.
He worked in the Barossa Valley for Kaiser Stuhl as a sparkling wines manager before becoming Australia’s first freelance technical advisor to wine companies across South Australia, earning $2.50 an hour. In 1966, Wolf registered his business Bilyara, an Aboriginal word meaning “eaglehawk” – a symbol that marked the winemaker’s brand in decades to come. His first vintage was 250 dozen, a small fraction of the 50 million Wolf Blass branded bottles eventually sold by 2005.
By the late 1960s, Blass was a manager and winemaker for United Distillers, helping to convert Tolley’s image from a brandy producer into a wine icon. In 1973, the Wolf Blass Wines International company was born, and the man himself was on the way to becoming a household name as he pioneered new wine varieties.
