David Whitley strikes gold when he veers away from the big names in Australia’s most famous wine region.

Outside the church, I am greeted by a man pushing a lawnmower and bearing the hallmarks of having spent the last hour or so lugging firewood around. He is clad in wellies and sports a splendid moustache – making him look a little like Timothy Dalton in Flash Gordon, albeit having retired and moved to the country.

It would reasonable to assume that this redoubtable chap is the groundsman but, as I am soon to discover, he makes the best rosé wine I have ever tasted.

Charles (or Charlie to friends or anyone he gets chatting to) Melton is one of the greatest winemakers in the Barossa Valley. And thus Australia. And thus the world. In wine circles, he is a bit of a superstar, but he still has time to cut the grass for guests. The Kirche is clearly a labour of love for Charlie and his wife Virginia. It has sat on their property for years, and they have decided to drop a couple of hundred thousand dollars on doing it up as state of the art accommodation.

It’s an absurd, unnecessary sideline, but an indication of the characters that have made the Barossa Australia’s best known wine region. And the stories stick in the mind as much as the tastings remain on the palate. Melton himself started working for Peter Lehmann, who is by now a godfather figure here. Lehmann is known as a gambler; when the government was trying to pay vineyards to rip out shiraz vines and plant the then popular chardonnay – he stuck to his guns. He took the huge risk of negotiating credit terms with grape growers, turning down government subsidies and refusing to plant grapes (such as chardonnay) that just weren’t suited to the region.Now, of course, the Barossa is almost synonymous with bold, gutsy shirazes, and it’s precisely these wines that have made the area an economic powerhouse.

The Barossa has a bit of a reputation for being dominated by the corporate giants. Many of the big names are indeed based here. It is perfectly possible to do a wine tour around the Barossa just ticking off bottles you can buy in your local Tesco; Wolf Blass, Jacob’s Creek, Peter Lehmann, Yalumba and Penfold’s are all present and correct. Indeed, there is something to be said for visiting a couple of the big boys. Yalumba, for example, has its own barrel-making operation and you can watch the coopers in action, while Peter Lehmann’s does an excellent lunch platter.

But the real joys come in diverting from the obvious candidates and taking a few gambles on wineries you’ve never heard of. We ended up down a dirt track at Hentley Farm, which may as well have been somewhere Postman Pat delivers to as far as we were concerned. Again, there’s a good story behind it. The owner was obsessed with making great red wines, and studied the geography intently in order to discover precisely the best spots for growing the right grapes. He then went door knocking to see who in those spots would sell up. The old farm gave in, and his cellar door has a history as a cattle barn and shearer’s quarters. Indeed, the marks left by the shearers showing how many sheep they’d shorn in a day can still be spotted on the walls.

It may look like a rustic operation, but the wines are awesome. We ploughed through the tasting list, blurting out oohs and aahs that probably made us sound like special children being told they can swim with a dolphin. And it’s such discoveries that going on a wine tour is really about. New stories and new favourites are far more valuable that getting as pissed as possible within an allotted time frame and visiting the homes of drinks you can taste week in, week out at home.

Oh, and if you come across a car rattling all the way up to Darwin, it’s probably us with our rather somewhat over-enthusiastically garnered plunder.

Disclosure: David was a guest of the Kirche at Charles Melton Wines (Charlesmeltonwines.com.au) and the South Australian Tourism Commission (SouthAustralia.com).

PS – I heartily recommend spending the little bit extra and doing a private tour with someone who knows the area well, rather than going on a big tour bus that only visits the major players. I went with Tom from Barossa Epicurean Tours (Barossatours.com.au) – and he’s excellent.

More photos here