[2] Romavilla Vineyards, on the outskirts of Roma in the Maranoa district of south western Queensland, was established in 1866 by Samuel Symons Bassett.

At the peak of viticulture in the Roma district in the late nineteenth century there were 50 local vineyards, the majority of which had been established in the 1870s and 1880s.

The principal vignerons in the district included SS Bassett, John Robertson (manager of Mount Abundance Station), William Tune, James Spencer, Alexandre Robinson, and the Tardent brothers (Henri, Alexis and Emile, from the late 1880s).

[1][4] Bassett, born in Cornwall in 1840, arrived in Sydney in 1856 and worked on his uncle's Hunter Valley property for some years.

From 1860 he managed Euthulla Station in the Maranoa for his uncle and cousin, until in 1866 he purchased from the Crown nearly 270 acres (109 hectares) of recently surveyed agricultural land just outside the town of Roma.

By 1888 Bassett had 55 acres under vines, from which he was producing 7,000 gallons of wine per annum, as well as table grapes for the local and Brisbane markets.

The earliest section of the present large winery building at Romavilla was constructed in 1877–1878, reportedly of cypress and imported Oregon pine, and was extended several times in later years.

It accommodated the whole process of wine making, from crushing, to fermentation in vats, to maturing in barrels, to bottling, and incorporated a large underground cellar.

[1] Romavilla underwent considerable expansion during the last decade of the nineteenth century and in 1898 Samuel Bassett sent one of his sons, William Augustus, to learn wine-making from Leo Buring in South Australia.

Adjacent to the cellar was a "well-equipped plant, with the latest appliances for wine-making", including cooling coils on the vats to reduce heat during fermentation.

Following his death in late 1912, Bassett's sons expanded the enterprise into the largest wine-producing firm in Queensland.

Documentation has been preserved, including early award certificates and a letter from Prime Minister William Hughes, a former worker at Romavilla, who wrote recalling those days following a gift of wine from the vineyard.

Bounded by Northern Road to the west, Bassett Lane to the north, a neighbouring property to the east and Edna Street and the adjacent caravan park to the south, the winery complex comprises a number of structures.

A display vineyard stands to the south of the driveway adjacent to the small low-set timber-framed and clad winery office.

The projecting gable roofed entrance porch opens into a narrow room running the width of the building.

The centre section accommodates racked barrels and the pressing equipment, storage vats and bottling machinery stand towards the rear of the building.

[1] The front elevation is clad with corrugated metal sheeting and the former tall rectangular parapet is now truncated to follow the outer roof lines of the twin gables behind.

The single storey extension running across the front of the building is sheltered by a skillion roof which is screened by a low corrugated iron parapet.

Drive wheels and other elements of the earlier power generation system remain to the south wall of the shed.

The tank has deep in- ground chambers with concrete walls rising about 1.7 metres (5 ft 7 in) above shed floor level.

[1] The cellar is dug into the ground below the front part of the shed and is accessed from the middle barrel storage area by a set of concrete stairs descending below the excise officer's podium.

A narrow corrugated iron sheeted chute incorporating a timber ladder drops into the cellar on the south side of the projecting front office cubicle.

A door on the east side opens into the still room where from the northwest corner a set of steep timber stairs to the cellar.

[1] In the distillery room, two copper boilers - one higher than the other - are set into a stepped rectangular brick frame which houses a firebox and stands against the south wall onto the dirt floor.

Each boiler is fitted with a tall copper cylinder standing perpendicularly over it, the whole crowned by a horizontal chamber just below the ceiling.

The boilers are connected by a copper inverted U-tube and a number of cocks and tubes are worked within the apparatus which is held within a timber frame.

To the front of the apparatus a cock regulates tubes that connect to the cellar below, running within a timber frame in the middle of the dirt floor.

Romavilla Winery demonstrates a continuity of use from the 1870s and is important for its association with early attempts to establish a Queensland wine-making industry.