While most of Australia's wine industry was directly influenced by the involvement of the British, the Barossa Valley was shaped by the influence of German settlers fleeing persecution from the Prussian province of Silesia. In 1841, the South Australian Company (under orders of one of its shareholders George Fife Angas) chartered three ships to Silesia to offer refuge and land in the Barossa Valley to any settler willing to volunteer to help establish the colony. Nearly 500 families accepted the offer and settled in the Barossa Valley. After trying many types of agricultural crops, the settlers found the warm fertile valley to be ideally suited for viticulture. The early years of the Barossa wine making ushered in a long period of trial and error for while the settlers were skilled farmers, their previous homeland of Silesia had little to no wine making tradition.
The early focus of the Barossa wine industry was on the production of Riesling, a German wine grape from the Rhineland. The hot valley floor contributed to a very ripe, alcoholic wine that would often turn brown. Some of this wine was eventually distilled in brandy which ushered in a period of fortified wine production that coincided with the plantings of many red grape wine varieties like Shiraz and Grenache. These "port-style wines" would become the center of the Barossa wine industry for decades to come. When the focus on the Australian wine industry shifted in the mid-20th century to production of premium, non-fortified wines, the Barossa was regarded as an "inferior" wine region compared to cooler climate regions such as Coonawarra and Padthaway. This was partly due to the extensive association that the Barossa had with Shiraz, including vast old vines plantings that were several decades old. During this period Shiraz was considered a very "common" variety that was not as fashionable as the prestigious Cabernet Sauvignon that was popular in the world's wine market. Most of the grapes produced
