Langmeil Winery
From ruin to greatness in a decade – that’s the story of Langmeil Winery, one of the Barossa Valley’s most iconic places.
To walk through the historic grounds of Langmeil is to be transported back to the mid-1800s when a 36-year-old German blacksmith, Christian Auricht, and his family arrived in South Australia from Silesia in eastern-central Europe with their worldly possessions in a bullock dray.
Like many of the Barossa’s first settlers, the Auricht family were Lutherans, fleeing their home to escape religious persecution.
After establishing the village of Langmeil - complete with a bakery, a cobbler's shop, a butcher's shop and the first well – Christian planted his first acre of vines on the estate. The year was 1943, the variety was Shiraz and those vines are now believed to be Australia’s oldest Shiraz plantings and one of the oldest in the world.
As recently as 1993, however, those vines had been left to wither when the winery – then known as Bernkastel Wines – went into liquidation after the hard years of the 1980s grape glut.
The rescuers came in the shape of three Barossa mates - Richard Lindner, Carl Lindner and Chris Bitter – who bought the derelict winery in 1996 and set about an unlikely mission of establishing one of the world’s top wine producers.
Today, after much sweat, blood and cash, Langmeil Winery is a wonderful success, with leading critics bestowing its wines – such as The Freedom 1843 Shiraz produced from Christian Auricht’s vines - with glowing endorsements.
Chief Winemaker Paul Lindner and Winemaker Tyson Bitter mesh together old world and new world technology to create fruit-driven wines with subtle complexity from dry-grown vineyards across the Barossa.
Open fermenters and basket presses are used for over half of Langmeil’s grape intake of approximately 1000 tonnes. The synergy of new and old world equipment helps capture the characteristics in each variety and protect the subtleties of individual vineyards.
The young team driving Langmeil’s global success remain focused on continuing to seek out vineyards and varieties which produce fruit displaying excellent regional characteristics and depth of flavour and colour. No doubt, the pioneers of Langmeil would be quietly pleased. – John Lehmann