Surrounded by vines, on a dry red slope high above the Clare Valley, I'm at Taylors Wines learning about terra rossa, gewurztraminer and seahorses.
Is there a link? Well yes, it's all about how the environment, tradition and technology meet to produce award-winning wines.
Mitchell Taylor, managing director at Taylors, 90 minutes' drive north of Adelaide, is explaining how the winery has evolved since his grandfather planted 149ha of cabernet sauvignon vines in the late 1960s for table wine production, a brave move at a time when everyone else was producing fortified wines. Until then, the family had been involved in the hotel and wine merchant business in Sydney.
This year, the three-generation wine company is celebrating its milestone 40th vintage, and weather conditions, Mitchell says, have been excellent.
"We believe this 2012 vintage will probably be one of the best.
"Looking at the beautiful colours and flavours coming through, we're rating it with the great 1990 and 1998 vintages. It's really got potential to be one of the best ever."
Taylors' 40th vintage officially began in early February with gewurztraminer being first off the vine. The harvest of all other wine varieties was completed in April.
Last year yields were down almost 40 per cent on predictions because it had been a "shocker of a year", but Mitchell says the winery brought in its predicted amount of nearly 8000 tonnes of fruit during harvest this year.
"It's wonderful to mark the family winery's 40th anniversary with such excellent conditions."
Taylors entered their inaugural cabernet sauvignon vintage in the Royal Adelaide Wine Show in the 1970s and walked off with the coveted Montgomery Trophy for best red wine in show.
The accolades then kept rolling in - that 1973 vintage won a gold medal at every national wine show it was entered in.
"With that sort of heritage it's great to see that we're sticking to the old ideas as well as innovating, and now we're still winning awards in Australia and internationally," says Mitchell.
These days, Taylors, which in 2000 was the first Australian wine company to abandon cork in favour of screw-top, is the largest contiguous vineyard in the Clare Valley.
The location was carefully chosen by Mitchell's grandfather, Bill Taylor. The soil is red-brown loam over limestone soils (called terra rossa) and the cool climate of the valley is well known to be excellent for producing cabernet sauvignon grapes.
Mitchell says the family always knew there was something in the soil and during the initial excavation of the vineyard dam Bill was amazed to uncover the fossilised remains of tiny seahorses, showing the area had been the bed of an ancient inland sea.
He thought this to be a lucky omen and testimony that the terra rossa soils were indeed fertile.
Today, a drawing of those seahorses can be found on Taylors' wine labels throughout the world.