If you like rich, full-flavoured Shiraz
– this one’s for you!
“After decades of selling his grapes to other Barossa winemakers, Peter Scholz is now making his own wine, with
exciting results.” Andrew
Catchpole (Daily Telegraph)
In the eastern part of the Barossa Valley ,
there is a tiny hamlet called Light
Pass (Population 30, it
proudly boasts on the sign announcing that you have arrived there). This is
where you will find the Barossa
Valley ’s most under-rated
winery: The Willows Vineyard.
Here Peter Scholz
quietly plies his trade, producing top quality wines and selling them for
extremely reasonable prices that seem over-generous given the prices asked for
often inferior wines from the region.
The Scholz family’s estate is steeped in history, dating
back to 1845, when Johann Scholz, a bonesetter by trade, set up a small
hospital on the site. In 1936, Herbert Scholz planted the vines that still grow
in the vineyard. For decades the Scholz family sold their grapes to some of the
bigger companies, notably Peter Lehmann.
The move to producing their own wine came when sixth
generation Peter Scholz enrolled in
the famous winemaking course at Roseworthy Agricultural College, near Adelaide,
that has produced so many of Australia’s top winemakers. After graduating, he
worked at Peter Lehmann, moving up through the ranks to eventually become
Assistant Winemaker.
But Peter had a vision for The Willows Vineyard: he was well
aware that much of the grapes they produced tended to find their way into the
Barossa’s flagship wines. So, in 1989, he began to set some of the fruit aside
to produce wine under the Willows banner.
The wines of Willows Vineyard rapidly came to the attention
of wine-lovers and critics alike. Show successes followed, including the
International WINE Challenge’s first-ever Semillon Trophy, with his 1993
Semillon, but it was the Willows Shiraz that really swept the board with medal
after medal including two successive Gold Medals in the International WINE
Challenge.
With such success and praise you might have thought that
Willows Shiraz would have joined in the Barossa goldrush of the late 1990s when
many of the wineries sharply increased prices on the back of high ratings (and
high prices achieved) in the US. Indeed, Peter once showed me a clipping from
an American wine magazine – he had sold 20 cases to an American importer, who
then put a stupendous margin on the wine so that it was priced at over US$40
per bottle. The wine received a high rating and was thought to be “good value”
by the magazine.
Peter dismissed it all as hype (actually, he used another
word!) and bid the US
farewell. He is happier that his Shiraz is considered to be one of the
Barossa’s best value wines.