Rosenvale Vineyard's Founder, James Rosenzweig, is running the Rosenvale business today along with his father, Aubrey, and son, Jake.

James' passion for grapes started back in his school days when he worked in the family vineyards before and after school. These early skills were refined and expanded over the years as James learnt to adapt to the challenges and variations that inevitably appeared from season to season.

James started influencing the style of Rosenvale wines after completing a basic winemaker's course, in which he gained an understanding of the basic winemaking principles.

In October 2020, James was inducted as a Baron of Barossa (pictured above) for his commitment to the Barossa Valley and to the wine and grape industry.

PAUL OSCAR ROSENZWEIG

Born: 6 August 1906

Paul Oscar Rosenzweig, the fourth child of Gustav Paul and Louise Alma Rosenzweig, was born at the homestead at Moculta on 6 August 1906, and christened in the Gnadenberg Lutheran Church by Pastor F.A. Hossfeld on 2 September 1906.

Oscar commenced his education at the Moculta Lutheran School under teacher Friedrich Jacob and then the State-run school with headmaster James O'Neill and his assistant, William Robinson. James O'Neill started the Moculta tin whistle band in 1917 and records show that Oscar, as a member of his band, played the triangle which had been presented to the band by local resident, Carl Linke.

Oscar was confirmed in the Gnadenberg church on 12 December 1920, and went on to be active within the youth group at Gnadenberg. The Young People's Society was founded on 29 June 1930, and at a meeting held on 10 August of that year, Oscar was elected as the first treasurer.

On 28 October 1931, Pastor T. Hebart married Oscar to Hilda Emilie Pfeiffer in the Langmeil Lutheran Church at Tanunda and the couple lived with Oscar's parents on the homestead at Moculta which he eventually took over after the death of his father in 1947.

Oscar had always been an active member of the church at Gnadenberg. In 1934 he was secretary of the church, and in the church centenary year, 1960, he served on the committee of management.

At a family reunion held on the property in the 1960s, the family voted the Oscar be re-imbursed for his act of generosity. This reunion was held prior to the demolition of the old cottage where Johann Gottlieb, Oscar's grandfather had lived.

GUSTAV PAUL ROSENZWEIG

10 August 1877 - 24 August 1947

Gustav Paul Rosenzweig, the tenth child of Johann Gottlieb and Wilhelmine Rosenzweig was born on 10 August 1877, on the homestead at Moculta.

At the age of seven, Paul would have commenced his schooling at the Moculta Lutheran school which had opened in 1882, his teacher would have been Richard Rieschieck.

On 17 April 1902, Paul was married to Louise Alma Zadow in the Milendilla Lutheran church and later took over the farm where he and his brothers were raised and continued to run this property for twenty-seven years.

In 1904, Paul was appointed by the Angaston Council and duly sworn in as the Constable for the Moculta district and issued with handcuffs and a baton. The men appointed to this position were respected, well-built ratepayers and only served for twelve months.

During the years that Paul and his wife Alma worked the property, a second house was built on the property adjacent to the house that his father and mother had lived in; this house had a cellar underneath in which wine was made from grapes grown on the property. Part of this house can still be seen when approaching the property from Moculta.

Johann Gottlieb Rosenzweig

12 February 1839 - 23 November 1892

Johann Gottlieb (known as Gottlieb), the first child of Gottfried and Johanna Dorothea Rosenzweig, was born at Bomst, a village in the Province of Posen in Prussia, on 12 February 1839 and baptised in the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Bomst by Pastor Ferdinand Elsner.

Gottlieb would have commenced his schooling while still living in Bomst, at the age of ten years, he fare welled his school friends when his parents made the decision to emigrate to a country of which they knew very little.  The family met with several other families from Bomst also making the journey - the Storch family from Bomst had three children, so Gottlieb and his younger brother (Julius Hermann) would have had some friends with whom to share the experience. At Hamburg they boarded the ship Emmy, which took them to Australia. After several months at sea, the shipload of emigrants arrived at Port Adelaide.

From the port of Adelaide the family probably joined with the Reimanns from Bomst, who had no children and the Storch family, and travelled to Adelaide, where they fare welled the Storch family before travelling on to Hahndorf. There, they were given temporary accommodation and they were settled and had bought their own land, and once again, Gottlieb was settled in school.

Gottlieb completed his education at Handorf, probably taught by the brother of Pastor Kavel. The family joined the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Handorf in 1851 - Gottlieb was confirmed in St Pauls Lutheran Church by Pastor Kavel in 1853.

When he was nineteen years old, the family once again packed their belongings and moved to Duck Ponds, near Moculta where Gottlieb's father had bought a forty acre property. Gottlieb helped his father establish the property, clearing the land and helping to build the house on the property.

On 2 February 1865, Gottlieb was married to Wilhelmine Enkelmann in the Gnadenberg Lutheran church. The couple lived in the shepherd's hut on Section 275, which his father had bought the previous year. Gottlieb bought Section 287 at Moculta and built a house on this property while living in the hut on Section 275. The house he built probably had only a bedroom and a living room, with walls of timber and pug, and a thatched roof. This house would have been extended as the family grew and the later extensions were built using locally obtained stone, with the roof thatching extended.

At the age of thirty-four, Gottlieb become interested in education facilities in the district and in September 1873, he and two others become trustees and purchased Lot 11 in the Moculta township, for a proposed school. The land was transferred to Gottlieb in the following year, and he then sold the block to Daniel Lemke, a teacher at the Grunberg school and the builder of the organ in the Grunberg church. Lemke then built a school and residence on the block and this later became the Lutheran school in Moculta, shared by the Grunberg and Gnadenberg congregations.

Gottlieb was a versatile man and local records indicate that he made the first wooden plough in the district. The plough was a single furrow implement, pulled by a bulldog or horses and turning over 25cm (just over 8 inches) of soil in one cut. Using the plough, a farmer could work about an acre a day, much quicker than trait in later generations. Many members of the family throughout the generations have designed and built equipment and appliances to serve their needs.

Gottfried Rosenzweig

27 December 1799 - 29 April 1876

Gottfried Rosenzweig was born on 27 December 1799 at Bomst in the province of Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia.

Bomst was a border village and became part of Prussia after the defeat of Napoleon, who had earlier conquered the province of Posen on his march into Russia. In 1946 Bomst was renamed Babimost, and on modern maps now lies in Poland.

Gottfried was married to Johanna Dorothea Faesler, who came from the village of Kranz, near Bomst, on 13 April 1837, by Pastor Elsner. The marriage yielded two children, Johann Gottlieb and Julius Hermann, who were both born in Bomst where Gottfried was a farmer. Although family sources quote Gottfried as a confectionary baker by trade, he was recorded on church records as a yeoman, or tiller of the soil.

The agent for the South Australian Company, a gentleman by the name of Delius, was in Posen in 1849 and shipping records suggest that at least three families from Bomst booked their passage to Australia in that year. Edward Schroder and his wife, Carl Friedrich Edward Reimann and his wife, both from Bomst, and Heinrich Storch, his wife and three children, who lived near Bomst, also booked their passages in 1849. These people were probably all known to one another, and it is possible that they all belonged to the same congregation at Bomst.

It can be assumed that the three families travelled with Gottfried and his family, possibly following the same route taken by the earlier emigrants who had left their homeland to settle in Australia. Arriving in Hamburg, the four families would have transferred their meagre belongings aboard the ship Emmy, under the command of Captain Meyer. This little ship of 554 tons had four hundred passengers on board when it sailed from the port of Hamburg. It is not known how long the trip took, but records suggest that the ship came via Sydney and Melbourne, where it was delayed for eight days due to contrary winds.

The little ship arrived at the port of Adelaide on 16 January 1850 and disembarked and the McLaren wharf, which was built in 1840 by the South Australian Country, founded by George Fife Angus. Their impression on arriving in the new colony, only fourteen years old, would have been one of amazement, with some thirty-two ships in the harbour, either loading or unloading their cargoes.

Presumably the four families hired transport together, as three families were headed for Handorf, while the Storch family travelled as far as Adelaide. Leaving the wharf area, the four families travelled along the road through mangrove swamps which ceased at Albert Town (Alberton).

Shortly after leaving this road, the party reached the Port Road which had been set out by Colonel Light in his survey of Adelaide, and which travelled in a straight line between the city of Adelaide and Port Misery, the original Port, which is now part of the West Lakes development. The trip to Adelaide would have been extremely uncomfortable as the Port Road is early 1850 was nothing more than a single lane track, badly rutted from the passing of carriages and wagons, and as it was the height of summer, it was also extremely dusty.

The newly arrived emigrants soon sighted the Halfway House, one of Adelaide's early hotels, built close to where to Woodville Hotel now stands. Through the trees they saw their first Adelaide mansion, Tenterden House, while off to their left was a track to the little farming hamlet of Cheltenham. The wheat fields around this area were still black from a bushfire which had raged out of control through the area the week previous. Little communities had sprung up on the major intersections of the Port Road, a Blacksmith shop with three forges busily engaged in making wagon parts stood at Woodville Road. The party travelled past Kilkenny, a small farming settlement, and then through the trees they probably saw Croydon farm.

The next settlement they came to was Hindmarsh, situated at the junction of the Port Road and John Street, now South Road. The major industry here was Ridley's Steam Mill and further along was Crawford's Brewery. Near the brewery was another blacksmith's shop on the site where the Hindmarsh Town hall now stands. Leaving Hindmarsh village, the party crossed the River Torrens by a ford which replaced the bridge that had been washed away three times by raging waterfloods, and then came to the city slaughtery, which stood on the corner of West Terrace and North Terrace. The party probably travelled along North Terrace past the quarry where most of the stone was mined for most of Adelaide's early buildings, which is now the site of the Casino, before coming to the junction of North Terrace and King William Street, where they saw Adelaide's first Government House.

On arrival in Hahndorf, the three families were greeted and allocated temporary accommodation. Gottfried bought is first land at Hahndorf, one house lot and two separate working lots, a total of three and three-eighths acres for a total outlay of thirty-nine pounds. The house lot, which included a dwelling house, Lot 41, fronted onto South Lane, now English Street, and the two working lots, Lot 105 and 106 were within walking distance, at the end of South Lane.

The family stayed in Hahndorf until 1858 when Gottfried bought forty acres of land at Duck Ponds, near Moculta, a newly developed township seven kilometres east of Angaston. The family lived in a two-roomed shepherd's hut on the property of George Fife Angas while Gottfried built a house on the newly acquired Section 292.

Photographs of the new house, which still stands, indicate that it had only two rooms, and was extended in later years.

In 1864, Gottfried bought Section 275, an eighty acre block which included the original shepherd's hut where the family first lived. This block was originally bought for George Fife Angas by his manager, Charles Flaxman, for the price of one pound per acre and it was sold to Gottfried Rosenzweig for the total sum of 400 pounds. This same block of land was recently passed in at auction when the highest bid of $62,000 failed to reach the reserve price.

The original shepherd's hut was extended and renovated and over the years was used by four generations of the family; firstly Gottfried and his family, then by his son, Julius Hermann, before he moved to Dutton. The eldest son of Johann Gottlieb then lived there, extending and renovating the hut and the last occupant was Gottlieb's granddaughter, Laura, who moved out in 1986.