Silesian Lutherans, fleeing religious constraint, settled the valley from 1842, founding Bethany and planting vines almost at once; their names, churches and bakeries still mark the villages. Phylloxera never reached South Australia, so the Barossa keeps what may be the world's oldest continuously producing Shiraz and Grenache — the Turkey Flat vineyard has borne fruit since 1847.
For a century the valley fed the fortified-wine trade; then Max Schubert's Grange, first made in 1951, showed what its old Shiraz could do as table wine, and the Barossa became Australia's defining red-wine region. The Old Vine Charter of 2009 now registers and protects its ancient plantings, while high, cool Eden Valley to the east answers with some of the country's finest Riesling.