“I always was fascinated by the wine industry,” says Dan Piwko-Graham. “All the big tanks and big pumps and the buzz around harvest time, it drives the imagination of a young boy.”
Dan is behind Barossa-based label Sigurd, which he established in 2012 with intent to produce interesting, small-batch wines from sustainably farmed vineyards using low-intervention methods.
“I was definitely going against the grain of what I had grown up and trained into,” he says. “I remember being told, ‘No, you can't do that. We don't do that.’ I was like, that makes no sense. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
Most of Dan’s experience – at least within Australia – was gained in large-scale, commercial wineries. He grew up in the predominantly bulk winegrowing area of Yenda, just outside Griffith, in New South Wales’ Riverina, where his dad was also a winemaker. His first vintage was at Casella, straight out of high school. He then studied oenology and viticulture at Charles Sturt in Wagga Wagga while also working at the university’s winery.
After graduation, Dan went to Canada to snowboard for three months, which turned into a year and a harvest in the Okanagan Valley. Back-to-back vintages in the Hunter, Central Otago and Portugal followed in 2010. “Being young and ignorant, I decided I wanted to do as many vintages in a year as possible,” he says.
A job at Jacob’s Creek brought Dan to the Barossa at the beginning of 2011, where he worked, around vintages in Barolo and Hermitage, until the end of 2013. He was then at RedHeads Wines from 2014 until 2017 when he decided to focus completely on Sigurd.
Sigurd – which is both Dan’s middle name and the name of his great-grandfather, who emigrated from Norway to the Riverland after WWI – was inspired largely by the wines of Europe; particularly a ribolla gialla from Radikon he drank in Barolo.
“The big turning point for me was looking at this 10-year-old skin-contact white, thinking, oh my God, this is unreal. How fresh is this? How good are these phenolics? How structured and long living can this wine be?
“It really set me on track to seek out what European whites especially – central Italian, northern Spanish, even some of the more textural Portuguese wines – could be. There's a lot more to wine than what Australia keeps telling me,” Dan says.
Sigurd’s range has evolved exponentially from the first wine Dan made under the label in 2012 – a never-released McLaren Vale grenache – to what’s on offer today. As well as a red blend, white blend, and rosé, there’s varietal chenin blanc, syrah (although the current release has sold out), semillon and grenache. Fruit is sourced from several well-known vineyards, including the Hoffman-Dallwitz vineyard (“We don’t get any of the fancy Fraser McKinley shiraz”) in Ebenezer. Most the whites come from a plot in Vine Vale.
Dan is behind Barossa-based label Sigurd, which he established in 2012 with intent to produce interesting, small-batch wines from sustainably farmed vineyards using low-intervention methods.
“I was definitely going against the grain of what I had grown up and trained into,” he says. “I remember being told, ‘No, you can't do that. We don't do that.’ I was like, that makes no sense. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
Most of Dan’s experience – at least within Australia – was gained in large-scale, commercial wineries. He grew up in the predominantly bulk winegrowing area of Yenda, just outside Griffith, in New South Wales’ Riverina, where his dad was also a winemaker. His first vintage was at Casella, straight out of high school. He then studied oenology and viticulture at Charles Sturt in Wagga Wagga while also working at the university’s winery.
After graduation, Dan went to Canada to snowboard for three months, which turned into a year and a harvest in the Okanagan Valley. Back-to-back vintages in the Hunter, Central Otago and Portugal followed in 2010. “Being young and ignorant, I decided I wanted to do as many vintages in a year as possible,” he says.
A job at Jacob’s Creek brought Dan to the Barossa at the beginning of 2011, where he worked, around vintages in Barolo and Hermitage, until the end of 2013. He was then at RedHeads Wines from 2014 until 2017 when he decided to focus completely on Sigurd.
Sigurd – which is both Dan’s middle name and the name of his great-grandfather, who emigrated from Norway to the Riverland after WWI – was inspired largely by the wines of Europe; particularly a ribolla gialla from Radikon he drank in Barolo.
“The big turning point for me was looking at this 10-year-old skin-contact white, thinking, oh my God, this is unreal. How fresh is this? How good are these phenolics? How structured and long living can this wine be?
“It really set me on track to seek out what European whites especially – central Italian, northern Spanish, even some of the more textural Portuguese wines – could be. There's a lot more to wine than what Australia keeps telling me,” Dan says.
Sigurd’s range has evolved exponentially from the first wine Dan made under the label in 2012 – a never-released McLaren Vale grenache – to what’s on offer today. As well as a red blend, white blend, and rosé, there’s varietal chenin blanc, syrah (although the current release has sold out), semillon and grenache. Fruit is sourced from several well-known vineyards, including the Hoffman-Dallwitz vineyard (“We don’t get any of the fancy Fraser McKinley shiraz”) in Ebenezer. Most the whites come from a plot in Vine Vale.
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