Man of the Moment

These vines are all pre-Phylloxera and Dean himself admits that having the family that has owned them for seven generations farm the land for him is a good thing. "This is a perfect arrangement because after so many generations they know more about the land than I ever would."

But it wasn’t easy getting his hands on these now 160-year-old grape-producing vines. "I wanted to start my own business so literally went around, saw these old vineyards and knocked on the growers doors," he says. "With this one in particular, the Mourvedre, he [owner Leon Koch] did not know me from a bar of soap – I got a lot of "no’s" also along the way – but he said OK and he gave me a go I guess."

Eight rows of this rare and unique planting remain at Rowland Flat and from these vines is where Dean makes his much lauded single varietal wine called Old Garden. Geologists have confirmed that the Old Garden sits on what was the bottom of an ancient lake, once part of the Para River. The secret to the vines longevity is their extremely long roots burrowing over 30 feet down into the prehistoric ground.

"The roots of these vines are so deep that even on the hottest day, while every other vine in the Barossa Valley has shut down, the Old Garden’s leaves are bright and perky, tracking the sun as if each leaf is a radar," says Dean.

Although the Old Garden is a great wine from great old vines, it still takes a great craftsman to craft such a respected wine. Dean has an undergraduate degree from Roseworthy, the internationally renowned centre for excellence in dry land agriculture and part of the University of Adelaide. Not content with just that, Dean then attained his Masters degree from California’s UC Davis, the pinnacle of America’s centre for studying oenology and winemaking.

Asked if having worked abroad – Dean has worked in Beaujolais, Provence, Bordeaux and Oregon – has allowed him to define his own winemaking style, Dean exclaims: "Oh there’s no question about that. You’ve got to travel if you’re a winemaker, so if you’re from the old world you’ve got to go to the new world and if you’re from the new world you’ve got to go to the old world, just to understand it. It helps you to understand what you’ve got, just hearing and reading about it isn’t enough, you’ve got to go and experience it and realise that they do certain things for certain reasons."