Château Tanunda, 'Icon of the Barossa', is Australia's largest and oldest Château (est. 1890). It is a truly awe-inspiring place to visit and is as magnificent as some of the best wine estates and Château anywhere in the world.
The Château Tanunda Estate is the birthplace of the Barossa wine industry and is where some of the first plantings and the first winery were established in the 1840s. The Château survived two world wars and a depression, but as Australian wine flourished in the 1970s, the Château fell victim to the corporate raidings of Southcorp and was abandoned in the early 1980s.
In 1998, John Geber came across the abandoned property and fell in love. Having made an offer, he and his wife Evelyne set about restoring the Château, the grounds, the winery, and the vines and rebirthing one of Australia’s great wine icons in the process.
Château Tanunda Wines
John Geber recognised early that quality was the key to success, employing winemakers such as Ralph Fowler, Tim Smith, Stuart Borne and current Chief Winemaker Neville Rowe. Then in 2010, wine show success started flowing with the Château’s 2008 ‘The Everest’ Grenache winning the World’s Best Grenache trophy at London’s International Wine Spirits Competition (IWSC); the Olympics of the wine world.
Château Tanunda have since won the Berlin Wine Trophy for Australian Winemaker of the Year eight times, been nominated four times in Wine Spectator’s top 100 wines of the world, and Chief Winemaker Neville Rowe has been included as one of only seven Australian winemakers in The Drinks Business’s ‘Top 100 winemakers in the world.’