“You’re not a Barossan until you’ve eaten dill cucumbers, Linke’s mettwurst and a bucket of dirt in the vineyard,” laughs Dan Falkenberg, describing his own idyllic childhood.

Growing up on the western outskirts of Nuriootpa, Dan remembers spending hours “rolling in the dirt” as a youngster, playing in his grandpa’s vineyard next door, not knowing how important the soil he felt between his tiny toes would be later in life.

Grandpa Norm was a builder and Dan’s father, Ian, was part of the family business too, before studying Natural Resource Management and becoming a Park Ranger when Dan was around 13.

Ian’s first posting at Mambray Creek saw the Falkenberg family live in the national park before a second posting to Robe relocated them to the South East.

Dan immersed himself in the environment – bushwalking, fishing and adventure. Viticulture was already in his blood, although he didn’t realise at the time.

“I wanted to come back to Nuri High and finish Year 12 there. I ended up staying with my grandparents until Mum and Dad moved back later that same year.

Dan says he would have liked to have been more interested in studying back then, but there was much better fun to be had outside, away from desks and teachers. So, when he finished high school, Dan found seasonal work, picking and cutting apricots.

“I finished that and then I went stooking hay. During the winter, I went out pruning vineyards – Grandpa and Dad had taught me how to prune and drive tractors. I never had a permanent job; I was always working from one seasonal job to the next.”

Influenced by his dad’s environmental stewardship and the old remnant vegetation growing on the family property, the father-son duo embarked on their own revegetation project.

“While everyone was planting vines, we were planting trees. We planted about 20,000, took all the seeds ourselves from around the property, we propagated them all and planted them in probably the worst soil on the property.

“We kept a small parcel of land which was probably the best soil on the property, and Dad said here’s a patch of dirt, what do you want to do with it? I wanted to plant vines, so I planted an acre and a half of grenache, that was about 38 years ago.”