Handpicking from our own Heritage orchard has been a dream of mine from our very first days in the Barossa; the literal fruits of heartfelt labour, picked at their peak of ripeness. Our orchard offers me the chance to share old fashioned flavour beyond our own table, and that is the essence of what I strive for.

The Heritage Orchard is very dear to me, holding equal measures of sentimental value and the chance to preserve an all but lost tradition of fruit growing, beyond grapes, in the Valley.

If we hadn’t bought this place, somebody else would have and the trees would have been pulled out and planted to vines. We simply can’t lose the tradition of the landscape and all that heritage.

This is where our two daughters first formed their memories of life in the Barossa, playing hide and seek amongst the fruit trees of the orchard that neighboured our Pheasant Farm property at the time. 38 years on, when the chance to buy the five hectare orchard arose, I needed no convincing of its worth and set about nurturing the heritage fruit trees to continue the time honoured craft of growing and drying, this time for our own range of gourmet products.

Established over a century ago, the orchard is made up of a collection of 2000 trees including heirloom apples, apricots and pears, all bursting with the kind of flavour I remember from my own childhood; real flavour. And now we have five grandchildren, I hope this place will be in the family forever.