Having sold his stake in the Krondorf winery to Mildara Blass in 1986, Grant Burge recently bought it back again. It’s been something of an emotional process for Burge, his family and his dog, for the winery in question is a mere fifty metres from their Barossa home. ‘After Mildara bought the winery I trained all the kids not to go in there, so when we went back there recently my dog looked at me rather intently. I could tell he was thinking that we weren’t supposed to be going inside!’ he said. Burge was that busy moving back in before Christmas that he didn’t really have time to think about any sentimental aspect. ‘It’s only now that we’re back in the place that the memories are coming back. Ian Wilson (his then winemaking partner) and I were both unheard of and incredibly young the first time around. I was 26 and Ian was 24 when we bought the winery from Dalgety Wine Estates in 1972.’ With Ian Wilson, in just eight years Burge had taken Krondorf from its somewhat lowly stature in 1978 to being one of the most dynamic and successful of all Australian wine brands. Krondorf was everywhere: its releases eagerly anticipated, constantly reviewed, widely promoted and feted wherever it was sold. And it was even floated. So, as was his habit, Mildara Blass’ Ray King bought it. In retrospect, there was hardly room in the same folio for both Wolf Blass and the once-ubiquitous Krondorf brand. So while the Blass wines were constantly pumped up and promoted, Krondorf lagged and sagged until it really hasn’t very much meaning today in the scheme of things. Its two premier wines are today a ‘Family Reserve’ Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, but to whose family do they refer? Ray King’s? Ted Kunkel’s? Grant Burge’s? If in someone else’s hands Krondorf were to rise, Phoenix-fashion, again after all these years back into an important brand, the knives would surely be out in Fosters Land. So, perhaps keen not to see history repeat itself too precisely, Mildara Blass has not sold the Krondorf name back to Grant Burge, who has simply purchased the vineyard and winery assets. Cleverly, he retained first option to buy back the facility when Mildara Blass acquired it 13 years ago. Burge has renamed the site as the Barossa Vines Winery, after the company’s popular new label. ‘I’m really pleased to have bought back a significant part of my past,’ he says. ‘Appropriately the purchase has been made through South Australian Vintners, a company Ian and I set up.’ But buying back the farm shed is much more than an emotional issue for Grant Burge, whose recent acquisitions have seen him become the largest individual vineyard owner in the Barossa Valley. He needs somewhere to process all that fruit. ‘It fits quite well into the business plan, for we were having trouble working out how we were going to expand at the main winery at Tanunda where we’re a bit hemmed in. The (old Krondorf) winery has been set up by Mildara Blass for whites only, with very good tank presses. So, from 2001 we’ll make all our whites there.’ This decision leaves Burge’s existing Illaparra Winery (the historic Basedow winery at Tanunda which dates back to 1896) to concentrate on and expand upon its red production. Racing against the clock, Burge set up the Barossa Vines Winery in time for the 2000 vintage. He’s also planting a major new vineyard in the nearby Eden Valley, has established long-term relationships with some of the area’s best growers and expects to handle some 8,000 tonnes each year, producing around 50,000 cases. As for the Krondorf brand, which according to Mildara Blass chief exective Terry Davis ‘deserves the very best of care’, it will now be made at the recently expanded Blass headquarters of the Bilyara winery at Nuriootpa.
