Kaesler Wines

NEW: Kaesler Kitchen – Restaurant

NEW: Kaesler Kitchen – Restaurant

We are very excited to announce that Kaesler has a newly renovated and re-branded restaurant – Kaesler Kitchen!

We are now taking bookings – please phone 08 8562 4402 or email food@kaesler.com.au

Gottfried Kaesler had died in 1873. His son Daniel prospered from the sale of hay, and took up a number of properties. He sought land to provide farms for his six sons and at one time the Kaeslers owned land on the other side of Barossa Valley Way opposite the present holding and the areas now occupied by the Kaiser Stuhl (Southport) winery and the nearby Tarac plant. The Kaesler lands were noted as some of the “tidiest” in the district.

On April 23 1891 Daniel bought the Domke 60 acre-block for his fifth son, Paul Hermann Kaesler. He also acquired “40 acres or thereabouts”, part of Section 134, which almost joined Section 122 in the northeastern corner. Some four acres of this were surrendered to the South Australian Railways Commissioner in 1911. Daniel took out a mortgage with the Gramps to finance the purchases.

Paul Hermann Kaesler, born in 1880, was only 11 when his blocks were bought. So it appears the whole extended family moved in to clear away the light scrub and tussocks that covered his future inheritance.

In 1893 the total area was planted with vines. The Kaeslers now knew exactly what to grow. They planted Shiraz, Grenache, Mataro and, in case it should become important, a little “White Hermitage” – probably Semillon.

It was the beginning of a hard struggle. Most of the grapes went off to Seppelts for port or sherry, but even without fortifying it was noticed that in some dry summers the ripe fruit produced wine up to 19% alcohol.

Paul Hermann became the official owner on July 1 1907 and a year later paid off the mortgage held by the Gramps.

In 1917 with grape sales flagging, Paul Hermann pulled up three acres of Shiraz and planted apricots for drying. In the early 1940s he pulled out another three acres and put in peaches. Later he added a couple of acres of prunes. But some more Grenache was planted, apparently in the 1930s.

Three Kaesler sons, Ernst, Arthur and Peter began to take over the running of the property from their father. In November 1944 he transferred the land to them.

Arthur, the youngest, gained the 30-acre “home” block, where the winery, cellar door, restaurant and accommodation are now. Ernst, the eldest, took the “30 acres, 1 rod, 20 perches or thereabouts” immediately to the south along Barossa Valley Way. Peter took the 36 acres in Section 134 fronting the Angaston Road. It was separated from the “home” block by a right of way “about 40 rows of vines long” and three metres wide. He sold his holding in the 1960s.

Arthur saw no future in dried fruit, and in 1961 and 1962 pulled out the fruit trees and replaced them with vines, mostly Shiraz and Grenache, still mainly for port. He also planted Mataro “just to have something different”, Clare Riesling (Crouchen) and some Semillon.

“The demand for port dropped off by 1962 and the other wine styles hadn’t caught on,” Arthur recalled. “We couldn’t get rid of anything. It was hard.”

Even the magical 1893 Shiraz was ignored. “No one wanted it,” Arthur said. He recalled one year in the 1970s when the search for a buyer saw the fruit remain on the vine long after normal vintage. Finally, when he managed to get Thum’s at Lyndoch to take it “the juice looked like blood.” When its sugar content was measured, the Baume was 18%. Arthur also recalled that it took 2-1/2 years to be paid the $125 a tonne.

It was difficult to survive, but Arthur’s foresight in extending the acreage of Shiraz was a crucial investment in the future. This same foresight, and probably stubbornness, kept him from taking the ill-fated swing into white wine in the 1980s. He ignored the “vine pull” that hurt the future of the valley.

But by 1986, he could no longer hold on and he sold the property to local landscape gardener, Toby Heuppauff. Toby continued to sell off the grapes and converted existing buildings to create a restaurant and accommodation units set in distinctive gardens with a long wisteria-covered walkway. He also had some wine made for him under the Kaesler label and sold it through the cellar door. Keeping up his own landscape business, it was an enormous task.

On the southern block, Ernst also got rid of his fruit trees. The last to go was the strip between Ernst and Arthurs’s houses along Barossa Valley Way. This strip was noticeable for the vines being planted north-south rather than the east-west of the rest of the vineyards.

There were some oddities in some of the other plantings on Ernst’s holding. A row of Grenache, for example, might have two or three Rhine Riesling. A later owner of this southern block, Barry Matthew, noted one patch with four different varieties. Arthur Kaesler, on the adjoining block, said nursery cuttings were not always true to type and it was “impossible to tell the difference”.

Barry Matthew also found uneven lines of vines that were certainly “not planted by a German”. There was a clear reason for this. In about 1968 Ernst sold his holding to the popular and hard-working Hungarian immigrant, Milos Obradovich and his German wife Irmgard.

Milos worked enthusiastically and when he sold the block to Adelaide business identity Barry Matthew in 1975, it had some 13 different varieties including, presumably for nostalgia, one row of 80 Tokay vines.

Barry, who said the Obradovichs “virtually gave me the block” when ill health caused them to retire in 1975, immediately went about taking out the Tokay and varieties such as Pedro Ximinez and Doradillo and replacing them with Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. “The overall ratio was about 60% white and 40% red,” he said. “I changed it to 76% red and 24% white.”

He also changed Milos’s policy to sell to the five big wineries in the valley and sold exclusively to Seppelts.

By 2001 Barry Matthew decided it was time to get out. He had deliberately allowed his children to make their own decisions on their future. “I didn’t want any of them to have the obligation that someone had to take over the vineyard,” he said.

He still loves the Barossa, however. He hived off about an acre and three-quarters to continue to live in Ernst Kaesler’s old house – and turned it into a bed and breakfast set in a Barossa Valley vineyard.

Kaesler own just over 37 hectares (92 acres) of vineyards in the Barossa Valley, the majority of it is old vine material, 1893, 1899, 1930, 1960’s.

Fruit is hand picked and hand pruned and water is kept to a minimum. Crop thinning is done in most years to reduce yields and maximise flavour. Blocks are kept separate until final blending. Nigel Van Der Zande is the vineyard manager for Kaesler. Re vegetation projects are also underway to help restore balance, improve soils and put something back into the natural environment.

Kaesler Home Block

Surrounding the winery and directly across the road, is 28 hectares of vineyards. Soils are sandy clay loam, which in lay-mens terms means we have sandy loam top soil for about 25 cm and then it goes through into a thick potters clay layer for the next 30-40 cm. From there it is clay but with small amounts of limestone dispersed throughout. Moisture is retained well in these soils, which is ideal for our hot, dry weather.

DURAL WINES AUSTRALIA Pty Ltd – as well as the KAESLER, Barossa Valley vineyards, also owns vineyards in McLaren Vale (Nashwauk)  and Clare Valley (Clare Wine Co). Click on the links below to take you to their respective websites.

Nashwauk Vineyards

Clare Wine Co.