Summary
BAROSSA, the winemaking valley that sits around an hour's drive north of Adelaide, will always be regarded as the heart of Australia's wine industry. It is here, amid the hot, arid plains, that companies such as Penfolds Grange, Jacob's Creek, Charles Melton, Peter Lehmann and Henschke caught the world's attention with their bold, voluptuous, spicy interpretation of shiraz. For many, it was a long time coming, as Barossa lays claim to some of the country's oldest planted vineyards. Cuttings were first brought to South Australia in the 1840s, when Lutheran settlers arrived with samples from France's Rhne valley. They bore that region's most famous variety: syrah, which the locals renamed shiraz. Fortunately, Australia has never been affected by the desperately destructive phylloxera louse which wiped out most of Europe's vineyards in the late 19th century. Yet for decades the production of table wine was nothing more than a cottage industry.
Given that the region's climate is well suited to producing wines similar in character to sherry and port, it is not surprising that Barossa established a large domestic market for fortified wine. It wasn't until the late 1960s, pioneered by Max Schubert at Penfolds, that a new generation of winemakers decided to increase production of table wines. Even then, it was a further 20 or so years before the likes of Grant Burge made their name on the British high street.See the full content of this document
Extract
Happy Valley
Burge's story is quintessentially Australian. In 1855 his ancestors emigrated from Wiltshire to South Australia. By the time young Grant was born, his parents w...
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