A Taste of Australian Wine

The Barossa Valley

by Gavin Trott

There wouldn't be much doubt that if I asked people around the world to name just one Australian wine region, most would say "The Barossa Valley".

Why is this? Well, some excellent promotion over the years has helped, it is the home of Penfolds Grange, plus there are a myriad of other reasons.

An important factor in this is the fact that the Barossa Valley is our most important wine region. Just look at the names based there, a who's who of large quality producers, mixed with some of our most stunning boutique wineries. Any list would have to include Wolf Blass, Penfolds, Orlando, Seppelts, Peter Lehmann, Yalumba, and Krondorf, who between them produce some 50% of all of Australia's wine!

Add to this the important boutique producers like Charles Melton, Rockfords, Henschke, St Hallett, Greenock Creek, Torbreck and others and you can see that this is the region most people start with when discovering Australian wine.

However, the real reason lies in the wines themselves, as they offer a unique style of wine coupled with remarkably consistent quality.

Style

...well, the Barossa producers all make wines designed to please. Pleasing the customer should be obvious, but it appears that not all wine producers aim to please the consumer all the time! In the Barossa they take all those many hours of sunshine and clean air and turn it into wine, all flavour, ripeness and health in a bottle. Many of the wines are made not for deep thinking and considering, but for enjoying. They are fun wines, upfront, tasty and enjoyable, made to be slurped down with good food and good friends. A generalisation? ... of course, but not far off the truth, I think.

The style does emphasise two things, however; very ripe fruit (indeed it's hard to grow fruit there that does not get fully ripe) and American oak. At its best this produces wines chock full of fruit flavour with hints of chocolate and vanilla, often at great bargain prices. It can occasionally be overdone, overripe and overoaked, but these wines are slowly lessening in number, I think - most producers seem to get it about right most of the time.

Quality

...at the top end the quality is amazing, Grange, Old Block, Nine Popes, Run Rig and many others prove that the Barossa makes world class wine. However, the valley makes wines of an extremely high standard across the board, and at almost every price level, from Grange down to Krondorf Shiraz. Indeed, it is hard to find a Barossa Valley wine that is not clean, well made and enjoyable, and the range of exceptional quality wines is expanding annually.

Climate

...the Barossa Valley is some 45 minutes drive north west of Adelaide, and just far enough inland to be away from the moderating effect of the sea enjoyed by McLaren Vale. On average it is also a couple of degrees warmer than Adelaide and has long, dry summers. It is a climate suitable for grape ripening ...so ripe grapes is what you get, cool climate varieties do not work, and you can safely ignore most Riesling, all Pinot Noir, all Sauvignon Blanc and look for wines emphasising fruit and flavour.

Read about some of the varieties and producers in the Barossa Valley

About the author

Gavin is the manager of the Australian Wine Centre (a large collection of affordable, rare and cult Australian wines) and hosts the very popular Auswine Forum (an online discussion forum about Australian wine).