Laughing Jack
On 15th May 1841, at the age of 22, Karl Heinrich Eduard Kalleske (born 10th October 1818 in Prussia) bought 40 acres of land at Hope Valley, not far from Klemzig. Here, with his wife Anna Rosina Mattner they had their first child. August was born of Eduard and Rosina in 1843. The couple spent a short time in Hahndorf before selling their property at Hope Valley in 1846. A year later, the young family moved to the Barossa Valley and settled at Jacob’s Creek near Rowland’s Flat.
Over the next 10 years, Eduard and Rosina bought multiple properties throughout the Barossa Valley in areas such as Jacobs Creek, Greenock and Moppa; at one point paying $520 for a total of 261 acres. Importantly, in 1855, Eduard purchased land at Greenock where the current Kalleske family reside. Eduard and Rosina spent many years of hard work farming their properties, growing wheat and grazing sheep and cattle, until they finally retired in 1880 and moved into Nuriootpa.
As a young man, their eldest son August had helped farm the family property and later owned part at Greenock and Moppa until 1889 when it was then transferred to his son, Hermann Kalleske.
Now, fast forward to the sixth generation of family growers to have lived in the Barossa Valley, the three Kalleske brothers, Nathan, Shawn and Damon, still help their parents work the family property. With Ian and Carol still at the realm, each of the boys has their own speciality working on the property. Eldest son Nathan runs the cropping land on the Kalleske family property and also helps in the vineyards, spending four months of the year in the bitter cold pruning the precious vines. Youngest brother Damon is a ‘Jack of all trades’, from keeping the machinery in good working order to day-to-day operations in the vineyard and the family winery.
For 152 years, from 1847 to 1999, the extended family of Eduard and Rosina Kalleske worked very hard farming and growing grapes in the Barossa Valley. But Shawn became the first of all the extended Kalleske family to make the progression from grape growing to wine making in 1999, when Laughing Jack was born. Laughing Jack’s first vintage consisted of 352 cases of glorious old vine Shiraz. Although vineyards are a passion of the Kalleske’s, they still grow cereal crops and graze sheep on the property. Shawn purchased the Marananga property in 2005 from his Aunty Jan and Uncle Keith. Today, this is the home of the Laughing Jack Winery. 2012 was the first vintage at Marananga and an amazing vintage to kick off with after spending 13 memorable vintages at the old Greenock winery.
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