Howzat?

There is, too, a shared sense of legacy. “When we make a wine, we’re aware of the winemakers who came before and the standard they set. Travis plays with that same awareness—he knows the weight of South Australian cricket history and feels a responsibility to honour it,” says Dean. “Both of us are custodians of something we didn’t create but are deeply committed to extending.” A duty to remain faithful to the values their forebears built is a weight that does not always rest easily.

Cricket is a team sport, yet individual achievements take the spotlight, as they do for a winemaker. “Great innings and great wines both look like individual achievements from the outside, but they’re built on the work of many people behind the scenes,” says Dean. Teamwork is what allows the individual, cricketer or winemaker, to fulfil their ambitions.

The relationship also reflects a broader change in Australian society. “For most of the 20th century, cricket and alcohol meant beer. Wine, if it appeared at a ground at all, was in the committee room—a marker of privilege,” says Dean. From the nineties though, wine became part of everyday cultural life. “It happened simultaneously with an era of Australian cricket dominance—the two things grew up together,” he adds. Wine was not imported into cricket culture, says Dean; rather, “wine and cricket recognised that they were always part of the same culture”.

For Travis Head, the collaboration is a return to his roots. “He’s not making a lifestyle statement—he’s expressing something genuine about where he comes from,” says Dean. If terroir describes how the immediate environment shapes a wine’s taste, the origins of the winemaker are arguably a further layer of a place’s uniqueness. Here is a current Australian cricketer at the peak of his career choosing a small family winery for shared identity rather than commercial scale. “That story tells itself, and no amount of advertising budget can manufacture it,” he adds.

The range runs to six wines made by Travis with Bleasdale’s winemakers. The labels echo the famous Australian Baggy Green cap, alongside an image of Travis raising his bat and removing his helmet to mark a milestone. The M.C.G. Blend—Malbec, Carignan and Grenache—nods to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, while the S.C.G. Rosé (the ‘S’ for Sydney) brings together Shiraz, Chardonnay and Gewürztraminer. Barrel 454 Single Vineyard Shiraz honours Travis’s Test cap number, and Barrel 137 Grenache marks his match-winning World Cup final score.

Travis is not the only cricketer to turn to wine. Ricky Ponting—whose cover drive I spent years trying and failing to emulate—worked with the award-winning winemaker Ben Riggs to mark their respective achievements. Labels such as Tasmanian Chardonnay and Mowbray Boy Pinot Noir nod to Ricky’s heritage and formative years, while the Pinnacle McLaren Vale Shiraz honours the Ashes, and the Close of Play Langhorne Creek Cabernet Sauvignon takes its name from the tradition of raising a glass with team-mates at the close of play.

For Dean, geography explains much of the move from cricket into wine. “Australia’s best cricketers have disproportionately come from states where wine is a physical presence, not an abstract interest. These are people who grew up understanding that a region’s character is expressed in what it makes—and the leap from that sensibility to a genuine engagement with wine isn’t large,” he says.

Cricket, in turn, offers winemakers an ideal audience. “The Test match audience is exactly who wine producers most want to reach—engaged, loyal, considered in their purchases, and unlikely to be swayed by something they don’t genuinely believe in,” says Dean. “A Test match isn’t consumed, it’s inhabited—you return to it each day, you read it, you let it develop. That’s exactly how you approach a serious wine,” he adds. The rhythm of play, with its pauses between overs, creates “natural moments to return to the glass thoughtfully rather than reflexively.”

South Australia takes both cricket and wine seriously—a seriousness that derives, says Dean, from “a genuine belief that things worth doing are worth doing well, and worth taking your time over.” Both, he adds, are “woven into the landscape and identity of the state”, and Travis Head and others are now a firm part of that relationship. So the next time England squander the Ashes, or get walloped inside three days, you could do worse than drown your sorrows with the wines of South Australia.