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NOTES
Johann Gottlob Schrapel and his family arrived in South Australia from Silesia on the ship “George Washington” in 1844, just eight years after the colony was settled. Like many of their fellow Germanic migrants they made their way by ox cart to Bethany, the Barossa Valley’s first settlement, where they established a home and cleared the land to grow crops and graze animals. The Schrapel’s planted their first vineyard in 1852 from cuttings carefully nursed from Europe. A wine cellar was also built, but despite Johann’s reputation as an early colonial winemaker, the family concentrated on grape growing rather than winemaking for the next four generations.
More than a century later in 1981, Johann’s fifth generation descendants, brothers Geoff and Robert Schrapel, established Bethany Wines in a quarry, where the pioneers had hewn stone for their homes, high in the Barossa Ranges overlooking the family’s vineyards and the historic village of Bethany.
TASTING NOTES
Made from very low yielding vines, cordon pruned and hand picked long after the general Bethany harvest, this elegant, complex Late Harvest Riesling displays wonderful passionfruit and citrus characters on both nose and palate followed by a superb fresh, crisp finish. It will with careful cellaring, improve in depth, flavour and complexity for a long time. It goes very well with melon, tropical fruits and baked cheesecake and is a superb accompaniment to soft creamy cheeses like brie and camembert.
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