The history of the Barossa reflects the philosophical dream of South Australia as a haven of 19th century free enterprise and religious and political freedom.

Unlike the eastern Australian convict colonies of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, South Australia was a planned free settlement, designed by London’s philanthropists who saw an opportunity for honest, hardworking men and women to establish a new life.

Soon after the colony was proclaimed in 1836, George Fife Angas, the founder and chairman of the South Australian Company, instructed a German mineralogist Johann Menge to survey the ranges north of the infant city of Adelaide. Menge’s glowing report: 'I am quite certain that we shall see … vineyards and orchards and immense fields of corn throughout all [of this] New Silesia, which is matchless in this colony' encouraged Angas to select land encompassing the valleys, hills and open range land. Here they developed a typical agrarian Prussian village named Bethany, not far from Lyndoch, earlier settled by English migrants in 1840.

The region was named Barrosa by the colony’s Surveyor-General Colonel William Light, after the site of a victory by the English over the French in the Spanish Peninsula War. Misspelling on later maps gave it the unique Australian name, Barossa.

In 1842, two and a half years after the first German settlers arrived in South Australia, a congregation of over 200 dissident Lutherans made the journey to the Barossa from the provences of Silesia, Brandenburg and Posen.

Subsequent waves of German speaking settlers started other villages such as Langmeil and Light Pass while English free settlers tended to settle in the town of Angaston (named after the region’s founder) and the Barossa Ranges. This combined influence: hard-working German peasant farmers, artisans, businessmen, professionals and middle class English settlers who aspired to a ‘country gentleman’s lifestyle’ created an interwoven Barossa culture which remains unique amongst Australian settlements.

Self sufficiency was important and as a result the peasant experience of smoking meats, preserving fruits and making cheeses flourished. Fine music was an integral part of Lutheran worship and the English culture. Above all, wine became a basic part of life for the Lutheran settlers and grape growing developed as a fundamental agricultural activity.

The wealth of the English gentry sponsored the development of a commercial wine industry in the 1850s and 1860s but the real growth took place from the 1880s onwards.The Barossa wine industry developed along a different route from the traditional European practice of grower/winemakers. Although some growers did make wine for their own use, the majority sold grapes to the wineries.

The Barossa’s strength and success has come from this specialisation. Its pool of 540 expert vignerons have blended their 150 year knowledge of the land and its climate with modern viticultural practice, creating a partnership with the wineries whose specialist skills make the most of this superb fruit.

Here in the Barossa, you will find today’s life-style and hospitality blends comfortably with the architecture and memories of the past.

Courtesy the Barossa Wine and Tourism Association