Pictured is Goddard’s Hotel at the Lady Alice Gold Mine in the Barossa Goldfields – established in the 1870s by James Goddard, a Clarke family ancestor. Lady Alice was the first dividend-paying gold mine in South Australia, and the beginning of a long family history in the Barossa region.

Several generations later, the Clarke family still resides in the Barossa with Geologist David Clarke having met Cheryl (nee Thorn) they established their own winery. David and Cheryl work with son Sam who manages this family business. Cheryl’s family, the Thorns, settled in the Barossa ranges in the 1860s and the Thorn family property ‘Clifton’ still retains one of the regions oldest Shiraz vineyards, planted in 1854.

Thorn-Clarke is today one of the largest vineyard owners in the Barossa, and has received recognition from critics such as James Halliday and Robert Parker as one of the Barossa’s great producers.