Grant Burge

Written by Ian Robertson on 29th July 2007

It is too easy to knock the larger wine producers in Australia, and many commentators in Europe and the US seem to do so with glee. The idea is that the wine of a larger Australian producer is a commodity – a product. It is not the “piece of art” that it is in a country like France.

Enter Grant Burge.

A fifth generation winemaker who established his company under his own name in 1988, Grant Burge now runs one of the top 10 privately owned wine companies in Australia. Whist that may not make him as big as some of the corporate giants, that is certainly nothing to sneeze at – the winery has the capability to process almost 10,000 tonnes per annum, which is anything but small.

However, unlike many larger producers, you will not find a maker more committed to a region than in Grant Burge and the Barossa Valley. Steadfast in his belief that great vineyards, handled with care, produce great wines, he has shrewdly built a patchwork of premium sites across the valley, ones with potential to show the Barossa at its best.

Recently he purchased a site at Corryton Park in Eden Valley, ensuring that he continues a trend of diversifying the sites that he has available to him, and also providing a cooler climate contrast to many of his other sites while sticking solidly with a Barossa home base. Now, if I were writing these words about a premium producer whose wine cost upwards of $60 you would all probably be stroking your chin and saying “Yeah, but I’ll never taste these wines.” But, that is the difference – this desire for quality drives not only his premium Meshach Shiraz (approx $100) but also his Barossa Vines range of wines that average around the $15 mark per bottle. This is a quality driven producer who knows that people need to be able to see quality at a great price.

This strategy also means that he has found good success overseas as well as Australia - United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, the United States and Asia currently are avid customers. The growth of the company has also included wineries – the Illaparra Winery was purchased in 1993 for making the red wines, and the Barossa Vines winery purchased in 1999 for making white wines.

In researching this article, I was surprised to read on the company web site that Grant Burge had been “awarded every major trophy and medal in Australia (including the Jimmy Watson, Stodart, Brisbane Club and Montgomery trophies).” It is one of those statements – to win all major awards in Australia is a Mission Statement for many wine companies. That Grant Burge has done it is a demonstration of the drive and passion this company brings to its products.