The Paisley Wines story is crafted from the love affair Derek and Kirsten have with the beautiful Barossa where they live on their hilltop estate in Angaston with their daughter.

The couple met at The Church, a Sunday afternoon recovery party in London in 1995. Kirsten likes to claim that Derek was trying to impress her by drinking wine rather than beer when they met. He decided his Chemical Engineering Degree from Sydney Uni was a bit of a waste of time and enrolled to study Oenology at the University of Adelaide in 1997.  He has been a winemaker ever since. Kirsten has years of experience in sales, marketing and event management in hotels and wineries in the Hunter and Barossa.

The couple are passionate about making excellent value for money, quality drinking wines.

The Paisley name came about during a long lunch in Sydney with Kirsten’s parents. Kirsten’s mum suggested the name Paisley because Kirsten’s great-great grandfather, John Gardner and his wife Susan, came to Adelaide in 1839 from the town of Paisley in Scotland. The couple travelled on the “free passage” scheme to help build the state of South Australia.

The pattern we now know as Paisley dates back to Persia before filtering through parts of Indian society. Merchants from the UK imported premium cashmere fabrics from India with the iconic pattern for sale. The town of Paisley started copying these patterns and before long, everyone wore a bit of “paisley”. The Paisley Wines Fabric range is named and labelled in colourful paisley patterns, to celebrate this historic link.