Langton’s Selections Bethany Shiraz Bethany winery sits in one of the most picturesque corners of the Barossa Valley. The winery is located in an old quarry that overlooks the family vineyards and the historic and picturesque hamlet of Bethany. The Schrapels are Barossans to their bootstraps. Johann Gottlob Schrapel, a Silesian immigrant, arrived in 1844, just eight years after the colony was settled. He established a mixed farm and planted a vineyard in 1852. Subsequent generations continued to build the farming enterprise, the vineyards gradually expanding with the growing Barossa wine industry. The Schrapel family became important Barossa growers supplying wine to co-operatives, particularly Kaiserstuhl. The oldest vines are between 60 and 80 years old, although the vineyards have turned over at least three times. Economic conditions, vine age and changing market demand affected the vineyard varietal mix. During the late 1940s, for instance, many of the vines were planted to Palomino and Pedro Ximenez to satisfy the burgeoning fortified wine industry. The vineyards are located on the south eastern edge of the Barossa Valley under Menglers Hill in what the locals call the Hill Space Zone. The 30 hectares of vineyard in Bethany, comprising the Bethanien Block, the Old Manse block and the Homestead Block, are located in the path of cool gully winds and the cool on-shore breezes of the Great Southern Ocean. Planted on a range of well-drained loamy topsoils to red clays over vertical seams of granite, bluestone and sandstone, these vineyards – planted to Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot – represent a mixed palate of characters. The Shiraz vines are trellised on single wires, many of them self-supporting. The wines are vinified in the traditional Barossa manner with open top headed down fermenters with partial barrel fermentation and maturation for around 18 months in a mix of American and French oak (about 20% new). The GR Family Reserve Shiraz is a rigorous selection of the best fruit, batch vinified, partially barrel fermented and matured for two years in a combination of 60% new and used French medium toasted Cadoux oak. Its overall vineyard resources including holdings in the Eden Valley are some of the best in the Barossa. However the wines have yet to make a significant impact on the secondary wine market with the Shiraz highly under-valued. Bethany also makes a good range of well-priced wines including Grenache, Cabernet-Merlot, Chardonnay and Riesling. Andrew Caillard MW, Langton's