Vintage Reports

While table wines had been made in the Barossa since the late 1880s with some international success in the UK and France, the vast majority of production was fortified with brandy spirit to assist in preservation. It is generally understood that the first ‘modern’ Barossa table wine was made by Colin Gramp at Orlando in 1947 after he returned from World War II. Colin had visited wineries in France, Germany and California where he learnt about classic table winemaking techniques such as cool fermentation and oak maturation. His first wine was a 1947 Orlando Special Reserve Claret, predominantly made of Shiraz grapes with some Cabernet Sauvignon. This was the trigger for Barossa Vintage Reports to be published on an annual basis, with excerpts in the individual below.