Henschke

Few working vineyards anywhere still crop vines planted in 1860 on their own roots. The Grandfathers block at Hill of Grace does, and Eden Valley fruit from it has made a single-vineyard Shiraz since Cyril Henschke bottled the first one in 1958. Mount Edelstone, ungrafted and planted in 1912, took the Old Vineyard of the Year trophy on 18 June 2026.

Cellar door tastings are seated and take an hour, guided through a chosen flight: five wines at AUD $20 a head, or six wines including three old-vine bottlings at AUD $50 (July 2026). Those fees are either waived or credited against bottles bought on site. Vineyard access is a separate booking — the Hill of Grace and Mount Edelstone experiences leave from the cellar door and take in the working winery.

The winery trades year round, Monday to Saturday. Picking at Hill of Grace is timed around the full moon at Easter — the 2022 fruit came in on 30 and 31 March — so late March and April place a visit alongside a working vintage, which is also when the winery is most stretched. A Barossa Legacy Collection tasting ran 6 July to 5 September in the current listing at AUD $50.

The cellar door at 1428 Keyneton Road opens Monday to Saturday 09:00–16:30 and closes on Sundays; public holidays run 10:00–15:00, with Good Friday, Christmas Day and New Year's Day closed. Bookings are essential and walk-ins are not guaranteed in busy periods. No food or coffee is served, and licensing rules out wine by the glass. Experiences: Hill of Grace AUD $325, Mount Edelstone AUD $200, Museum & Rare AUD $650 (July 2026).

Henschke Cellars is at 1428 Keyneton Road, Keyneton SA 5353, in the Eden Valley hills east of the Barossa Valley floor. The winery puts Angaston ten minutes away and Tanunda twenty. Experiences depart from the cellar door, and arrival five minutes ahead of the booking time is asked for. Hill of Grace itself lies 4 km north-west at Parrot Hill, reachable only on a booked experience.

Henschke is a family winery at Keyneton in South Australia's Eden Valley, counting its start from the first recorded sale of Henschke wine in 1868 and now farmed by the sixth generation. Its standing rests on two single vineyards: Hill of Grace, eight hectares at Parrot Hill, and Mount Edelstone, sixteen hectares of ungrafted Shiraz planted in 1912. The cellar door is at 1428 Keyneton Road.

Johann Christian Henschke reached South Australia from Kutschlau, Silesia, in 1841. He bought 70 acres at Krondorf, then 80 more in the North Rhine district later renamed Keyneton, and planted a small Eden Valley vineyard in the early 1860s. The first recorded sale of Henschke wine came in 1868, the date the family counts from. His son Paul Gotthard bought the vines beside the Gnadenberg church in 1891.

Hill of Grace sits at 400 metres in the Mount Lofty Ranges, 4 km north-west of the winery, on alluvial sandy loam over clay, with 520 mm of rainfall a year and no irrigation. Mount Edelstone shares the 400-metre elevation on an easterly aspect with 600 mm. The Henschke Eden Valley vineyard runs higher again, 32 hectares at 500 metres with 700 mm.

Anyone booked onto a vineyard experience puts their shoe soles through a footbath before entering the rows. Henschke states this as biosecurity protocol against soil-borne pests including phylloxera, and it is why enclosed footwear is asked for. The same reasoning keeps guests from wandering the property alone: it is a working winery with machinery moving. Groups of seven or more must ring +61 8 8564 8223 instead of booking online.