"When I look at the winemaker behind some of my favourite Australian wines, the name Ben Glaetzer seems to come up frequently...This is a serious talent who has exploded on the wine scene with a brilliant array of wines". Robert Parker.
The Glaetzer Family wines are new to us at HarperWells. We first offered them in 2011. However we were already well acquainted with Ben Glaetzer, meeting him several times to taste his Mitolo label wines.
Winemaking patriarch Colin Glaetzer established his own label to create wines he’s passionate about – limited quantities of benchmark Barossa Valley reds. The first Glaetzers settled in the Barossa Valley in 1888 after emigrating from Brandenburg, Germany. The family left Germany on board the Nord-Deutscher Lloyd steamer “Habsburg” and took seven weeks to reach their final destination of Port Adelaide. From here they settled in a country town called Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley where they started their new life in Australia. The family were some of the earliest recorded viticulturalists in the Barossa Valley and Clare Valley.
Today, Ben Glaetzer carries on this family winemaking tradition and has created a small, focused portfolio of classic Barossa Valley reds which draw on traditional Barossa viticulture but are unmistakably new wave Barossa in style.
The exceptional fruit for all Glaetzer wines is supplied by a loyal group of third and fourth generation Barossa grape growers and comes from a small sub-region (1.5 sq miles) of the Barossa Valley called Ebenezer. The dry-grown vines range from 30-120 and are a unique part of Australia’s viticultural heritage producing wines of great intensity and elegance. The Australian Langtons Fine Wine Guide wrote “Glaetzer is one of the emerging stars of the Barossa... philosophically and by heritage.”