A single vineyard Shiraz from fruit grown to the estate's 1893 block, hand pruned and hand picked, yielding less than two tonne per acre. When Kaesler first purchased the property, it was in a derelict state and certain to die if measures to revive the site were not expedited. Many years of over cropping and neglect had taken its toll. A previous regime of irrigation with increasingly salty bore water was slowly poisoning the soil. A thousand kilos of Old Bastard's fruit gives about 680 litres of wine or about 900 bottles, single vineyard expression at its most extreme.

The Kaesler family sprung from Silesian pioneers who migrated to the Barossa in the 1840s. The ancient vines on the 1893 block have deep roots, permitting a greater uptake of minerals, heightening the complexity of the Old Bastard. A greener farming approach has yielded a wine which is enormously hard to interpret when young. A French technique known as eleve-en-chene is employed throughout the vinification, assisting the skilled vignerons who are at a loss to explain what they can't see and don't understand. Old Bastard is matured in the Kaesler's underground cellar for eighteen months in a selection of choice Burgundian oak barrels, bottled a la natural, without any fining or filtration.