There’ s a Ferrari in Angaston that’ s clocked up some serious mileage.

She’ s not your cliché four-wheeled sleek red duco type, that would be far too boring. No, Jane Ferrari is a woman on a mission, a globe trotting wine-biz legend who is as fast-paced as her namesake suggests and, quite frankly, a bit of a motor-mouth when it comes to spruiking her Barossa.

Jane can spin a yarn at fifty paces, every one of them based on true life experiences gathered during her 17 years jet-setting around the world as brand ambassador for Yalumba Wines, Angaston.

She introduces herself as a travelling winemaker yet the description hardly captures the true generosity of spirit this official Baron of the Barossa offers in spades.

“ I started calling myself a storyteller a fair while ago and people would laugh. People don’ t laugh so much anymore,” Jane says.

“ It’ s kind of like brown corduroy pants, if you hang around long enough you become trendy all over again, you know?”

Such are her stories and ability to command a stage with her down to earth nature and comic timing, that Jane has managed to transform her experiences into an Adelaide Fringe Festival show aptly named“ Ferrari Unlimited Kilometres”. She’ s had patrons hanging on her every word listening to her“ fairly dodgey” singing and“ three chord” guitar playing, alongside fellow

Barossans whom she roped in as guest artists.

Listening to Jane, you find yourself on a roller coaster ride of adventure. She talks of growing up in Alice Springs and arriving in the Barossa after studying winemaking at Roseworthy College“ with a pretty amazing class” that included the likes of Rolf Binder and Chris Ringland.

“ I got to my third year and you had to do a vintage to get your qualification,” says Jane.

“ I couldn’ t get a vintage for love nor money and I started to worry what was wrong with me?

“ Bob Baker, my distillation teacher, spoke to John Glaetzer who had graduated dux of his course and was working at Wolf Blass back when Wolf Blass had 14 employees, not 1,400, and so he said to John, just give her a job doing anything.

“ I didn’ t realise at the time if you were a girl, working as a winemaker or a cellar hand was just not on the cards. It wasn’ t a matter of not being allowed to do it, it just wasn’ t the norm.”

Jane’ s first vintage was in 1983. She was 19 and remembers being given the job of unloading wine tankers with Aub Rohrlach who was a driver back then. In those days Wolf Blass had all their whites crushed under Doug Lehmann at Basedows and reds crushed at Masterson’ s under Peter Lehmann and Andrew Wigan with Charlie Melton as foreman.

“ I was throwing barrels up 3-4 high with the guys making stacks.... It was a very rude introduction to the wine industry. But that was alright because later on down the track you realised you were in a really interesting place at a really interesting time and you just didn’ t realise it.

“ 1983 was the floods and fire year. It was also a Vintage Festival year which was pretty neat. We saw the Valley before it got corporate and before it got merged and acquisitioned. It was a really interesting time to be around.”

Jane boarded with various families in the Barossa and lived at the old Top Drop Hotel for a time“ when the bird next door was freelancing” as she likes to put it- that story made it to her Fringe performance.

“ When I’ m doing my show, everyone asks for the poem, The Queen of Room 15!” she laughs.

Jane’ s winemaking qualifications now in hand, the bright lights of the big city beckoned and she accepted her first full time job with Tolley Scott and Tolley at their bottling line in Sydney.

“ I was working for the biggest spirit bottling warehouse in the southern hemisphere.

“ I didn’ t know it was the kiss of death for a winemaker to go into bottling and spirits. Which is really interesting now that spirits are so hot.”

Jane tells how she joined the Balmain Rugby League Club cheer

squad with players“ springing off” her first attempt at making a run through banner; and how she did stage set and fold back for a rock and roll band that played gigs 4-5 nights a week.

“ We would support groups like Mondo Rock and play all these amazing venues. It would be nothing for us to come in at 3-4 a. m. from Newcastle, park at Kings Cross and have breakfast at Sweethearts because it was open 24 hours. It was like you were walking into a Cold Chisel film clip. You’ d be nodding in acquaintance with the bikies at the Pink Pussycat strip club. It was one of those amazing times.”

Jane returned to South Australia when her mother became ill and gained employment at Yalumba as quality control line checker because of her bottling experience, but a mate encouraged her to apply for a Cellar Door position at Rockford Wines.

Jane’ s sense of humour came to the fore as she recreated the winery’ s newsletter in a quirky job application that caught Robert O’ Callaghan’ s eye. He gave her the job.

“ We had celebrity clientele like Dennis Lillee and U2. You’ d get someone who would walk in on a Tuesday afternoon, no one else around and you’ d talk to them for three hours and they would end up being the conductor of the London Philharmonic and be married to Joanna Lumley! Or you would get three plumbers from Melbourne