page_title: Château Tanunda Winery
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Château Tanunda Winery / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Château Tanunda's eastern wing and croquet lawn
context_page_description: Château Tanunda is an Australian winery established in 1890 in the Barossa Valley of South Australia.
  The Château Tanunda is one of the most significant winery buildings in the Barossa Valley built with bluestone quarried from nearby Bethany in the late 1890s, Glasgow cast iron, and French oak, and is a designated monument on the South Australian Heritage Register.
context_section_description: The Château Tanunda was established in 1890 after an opportunity for large wine export to Europe was identified with the drop in supply from a France hit by phylloxera. The Barossa wine industry, however, was disorganised and made up of over 560 peasant sized growers in the 1880s. While vineyards were expanding, what was lacking was the winery space.
  GF Cleland and William Jacob of Moorooroo formed the GF Cleland and Co ltd in 1888 luring wine pioneers Sir Samuel and Lady Davenport, Dr and Mrs ED Cleland and CJ Horrocks to invest. Working together with Barossa growers kingpin John Basedow and many smaller investors, they raised £38,700 to build the Château Tanunda winery building. With high unemployment in Australia at the time due to many strikes and a drop in foreign investment, the Barossa had a large supply of skilled stonemasons ideal for the construction of the large stone building. 
  The schisty bluestone for the edifice of the building was dug from a quarry in the nearby Bethany, and brick kilns erected at the front of a site chosen on highest point of the Barossa Valley floor, facing south over the first Barossa vineyards. John Basedow and his men completed the edifice in 11 months, which was the biggest building in the Southern Hemisphere when completed in 1890. Once established, the winery could handle 100 tons of grapes per day.     
  By 1902 exports totalled 80,000 gallons of Château Tanunda brandy, and 700,000 gallons of wine at £1 per gallon.
  From 1916 to 1998, the Chateau was owned by the Seppelt family. The business and structure was restored by the Geber family who purchased it in 1998, including building a small batch basket press winery. Its wines come from over 100 hectares of estate owned vineyards in the sub-regions of Bethany, Eden Valley, Vine Vale and Tanunda, as well as grapes from 30 growers across the Barossa Valley.
caption: Chateau Tanunda eastern wing and croquet field
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ20", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2008:02:12 12:38:24", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "422", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "6826", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5506", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:02:12 12:38:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:02:12 12:38:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "480", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "6702", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "ecd866882bc4df2f478ab4d5d0fb2a3f"}