Searching the world for excellence

The present range of Kaesler Wines springs from a worldwide search for a property to produce the best possible grapes for red wine.

Winemaker Reid Bosward and his co-owners, a group of international wine lovers, searched areas such as America's Napa Valley, the south of France, Marlborough in New Zealand and other parts of Australia before deciding to buy into the Barossa.

"No other area can produce the intensity of flavor that we have in the Barossa," says Reid.

The search began through a chance meeting - and the love of great wine.

Reid Bosward comes from Dural in New South Wales. As a boy he earned his pocket money packing shelves in the local bottle shop. He dusted a bottle of Grange. "I couldn't believe it. It was $7. Who would pay $7 for a bottle of wine?" he recalled thinking.

In 1987 he came to Roseworthy to do the winemaking course. It was a bumper three years. The 11 who finished that course now shape much of the Australian wine industry.

Reid went back to NSW to work for Murray Tyrrell in the Hunter Valley. Mr Tyrrell - "always Mr Tyrrell" - taught him neatness, order, cleanliness, balance and introduced him to working with Shiraz. He also learned that the real secret of great wine was always in the vineyard. It was knowledge he confirmed making wine in many places.

He took his technical knowledge to France to work with Jacques Lurton, near Narbonne, adding to the "Flying Winemakers" bringing new Australian skill to the less well-known areas of France. At Domain DuVasiere, he brought new techniques to a winery that was 600 years old.

In South Africa, he was instructed by the English owners to ignore local traditions to ape the French and produce wine that better reflected the fruit it was made from. In Moldavia, on the Black Sea, the wine froze - and he returned to the Hunter Valley.

Then chance entered. In 1994, Reid and his now wife Bindy were at Chateau La Louviere at Pessac in the Graves district. They were joined for a weekend by one of Bindy's friends, Julie Fraser, and her husband, Edourd Peter, a Swiss banker.

At dinner in a Bordeaux restaurant (helped by three bottles of 1985 Chateau Mouton Rothchild), Edourd asked Reid how much it would cost to set up a winery in Australia. Reid said a million dollars, which to him then sounded a lot of money. "Ed just raised an eyebrow and said: 'If you see anything in Australia you think would be a good buy, give me a call'."

That thought stayed with Reid as he returned to Australia to make wine for Brian McGuigan in the Hunter.

In 1997, Reid came to the Barossa Valley to make wine for Cellarmaster. This was an enormous experience. "At Cellarmaster, with all its demands for varieties and levels of quality, you had to make 20 times as many decisions as you would have to in other places," he said.

This added to Reid's confidence - and confirmed the knowledge that the real secret of great wine is always in the vineyard.