With a bold statement of uncompromising quality, Wolf Blass produces classic, award-winning South Australian wines that showcase both regional and varietal excellence.
Abrand synonymous with the Barossa Valley and the great Australian wine story, Wolf Blass Wines was established back in 1966 when Wolfgang Franz Otto Blass, the youngest person ever to graduate with a Masters in Oenology from Veitschoechheim-Wuerzberg, began making small parcels of wine in a small tin shed.
The first wine to bear his name was the 1967 Grey Label Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz, a soft wine with concentrated eucalyptus and mint flavours. Two years later, he acquired the three-hectare Bilyara site and, upon discovering bilyara meant eaglehawk in the Aboriginal language, and with the eagle being the national emblem of his native Germany, he decided all Wolf Blass wines would be labelled with the feathery emblem.
Today, by drawing on an extensive list of wine estates, and under the watchful gaze of acclaimed Chief Winemaker Chris Hatcher, Wolf Blass Wines craft a large selection of approachable, classic, award-winning Barossa Valley wines. Growing up in Adelaide, Chris knew he wanted to be a winemaker from a very young age and completed a degree at the University of Adelaide in South Australia before studying winemaking at Charles Sturt University in New South Wales. Today he is not only one of Australia’s leading winemakers, but a highly respected wine show judge across the globe.
After working at Orlando and Kaiser Stuhl in the Barossa Valley, and the Simi Winery in California, Chris joined Wolf Blass Wines in December 1987. For the next 10 years, he was the senior winemaker responsible for Wolf Blass whites and sparkling. In that decade, Chris made 39 trophy and 218 gold medal-winning wines. His attention to detail ensures the quality, consistency and character for which Wolf Blass is renowned.
At Wolf Blass, the complicated quality classification systems used in Europe gave way to coloured labels used to differentiate its wines, including the entry-level red label and the popular yellow, gold, grey and black labels, along with the premium single-vineyard platinum label.
The Wolf Blass winemakers make the most of the valley’s Mediterranean climate and the low-yielding, intense flavours of the grapes, including a couple of our locally available favourites Gold Label Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon and Gold Label Adelaide Hills Chardonnay, crafting the globally iconic wine that is enjoyed throughout the world.
Wolf Blass
Exquisite Taste March – May 2020
