Battle of Bosworth

The Free Bacchus Story

Joch Bosworth came home to McLaren Vale in 1995 to take over the family vineyards from his father and began converting a 25-acre block of Chardonnay, Cabernet and Shiraz to organic farming. He had to work out the methods himself. He grew soursob, a yellow-flowered weed, under the vines on purpose to smother the other weeds, and modified a rotary hoe to cultivate only under the vine, a technique that, Winetitles reports, many of the region’s organic growers now use.

The Bosworths have grown grapes in the district on and off since the late 1850s. Joch’s parents, Peter and Anthea, turned the family’s stone-fruit and almond farm over to vines in the 1970s. The first organic wines under the Battle of Bosworth name were the 2001 Shiraz and Cabernet. The name, the family admits, draws a long bow between the battle that ended the Wars of the Roses, fought at Bosworth Field in 1485, and Joch’s surname.

McLaren Vale, between the hills and the sea south of Adelaide, is warm Mediterranean country best known for Shiraz, which covers more than half its vineyard. It also has more certified organic and biodynamic vineyards than any other Australian region, nearly 40 per cent of its area under vine. Bosworth says its vineyard was the first there to be certified by ACO.

ACO certifies all the McLaren Vale vineyards and the wines. The Kangaroo Island vineyard, bought in 2016 and saved in the 2019-20 fires by farmer neighbours who cut firebreaks, is still in conversion, so its Springs Road and Little Island wines are not certified. Since 2010 the Puritan Shiraz has been made with no added preservative, and the 2024 won the Chairperson’s Trophy at the McLaren Vale Wine Show.