Henschke Wines

Ask anyone in wine circles who the most important Winery in Australia is and you will get one of two answers; Penfolds or Henschke. It's a deserved title resulting from the Henschke family's hard work dating back to 1861, the time of their original purchase of land at Keyneton in the Eden Valley region of the Barossa.

Johann Christian Henschke and his family fled Germany to avoid religious persecution, planting a small vineyard which would eventually produce its first commercial release in 1868. It wasn't until 1958 that fourth generation winemaker Cyril Alfred Henschke would produce a single vineyard Shiraz which would go on to make Henschke famous worldwide; the "Hill of Grace".  The name came from the translation of the German 'Gnadenberg’, a region in Silesia, and it was also given to the lovely Lutheran Church across the road. These vines, some of which were planted in the 1860s, are still producing small quantities of the complex fruit which is the source for a red wine that has since captured the hearts and minds of Australians and others the world over.

The winery and its vineyards have been under the watchful guidance of winemaker Stephen and viticulturist Prue Henschke for the past three decades. "The Hill of Grace is a gorgeous old vineyard," says Stephen, "and it's just amazing to think that that old vineyard and those vines have survived through the Federation drought, the '38 drought and they're still going through drought today. It's just extraordinary - it's a really special old vineyard."  Prue points out that "it's not a hill at all, it's a valley!"

Henschke now makes wine from over 107 hectares of land, including the famous Mount Edelstone vineyard and the Lenswood vineyard in the Adelaide Hills. This enables them to craft some of the best and most unique expressions of Shiraz, Cabernet, Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Noir in the world.