Peter Lehmann founded his eponymous winery in 1979, partly as a means of helping with the glut of grapes then afflicting the Barossa. “I’ll take your grapes and turn them into wine,” he told the desperate growers, many of them conservative farmers of Silesian descent who regarded their old vines as part of their patrimony. “But I’ll only be able to pay you when I sell the wine.” They gratefully accepted. Without this deal, it is widely believed that the Barossa would have lost a large swathe of its old vines. The crisis passed, in large part thanks to Peter’s energy and vision, and the Lehmann winery became one of the Barossa’s, and Australia’s, most outstanding wineries. It was for his role as saviour of the Barossa and as the creator of this winery, that Peter was named ‘Personality of the Year’ by the International Wine Challenge in 2009.
Peter Lehmann is also famous for two other creations. While running Krondorf in the mid-1970s, he gave a certain young ‘cellar rat’ called Graeme Melton the name ‘Charlie’. That young cellar rat followed Lehmann when he set up his own winery, before leaving to found Charles Melton Wines a decade later. The other creation is in the mind of Liberty Wines’ Chairman, David Gleave MW. During his first trip to the Barossa in February 1992, he visited the Peter Lehmann winery and was so struck by Peter, his growers and the wines that he was convinced, on the spot, of the greatness of the Barossa. Their deep-rooted passion and attachment to the land was no different to that found in the great wines of Europe.
This passion still exists in the winery today, despite the fact that Peter passed away in 2013 and sold most of the business to Donald Hess ten years prior. In 2014, his widow, Margaret, agreed with Hess to sell the company to Casella. Margaret was keen on the fact that John Casella ran a family company. The winemaking team has remained intact, with Nigel Westblade at the helm, supported by consultant Peter Scholz, or ‘Scholzy’, who has been involved with the Peter Lehmann winery for 40 years, after being offered an Assistant Winemaker role back in 1982 alongside Andrew Wigan and Charlie Melton.
Very Special Vineyard
Over the decades, certain vineyards have consistently stood out to the winemakers for their quality and individual character. Fruit from these vineyards is set aside when the vintage permits and made in small batches as single-vineyard wines under the ‘VSV’ label. Volumes are limited but the wines are outstanding. The ‘1893’ Shiraz is well worth a look: as its name suggests, it is made from a vineyard planted in 1893, yet the fruit has a liveliness and intensity that makes it sing in the glass.
