Twenty years ago, Young Gun of Wine handed out two trophies. The wine industry has looked different to young Australians ever since.
Last night marked the 20th annual Awards — and in Melbourne, six trophies were presented: to a Barossa rule-breaker making wines with Italian stoneware, a McLaren Vale winemaker pushing dessert wine somewhere entirely new, a sparkling specialist who makes the everyday feel special, a Mornington Peninsula grower-maker expanding the region’s vocabulary one riesling at a time, a winemaker who walked away from one of Australia’s most celebrated cellars to farm his own vines, and a Swiss-Australian couple who planted a vineyard from scratch on a steep Tasmanian slope and made it sing. These are the winners of the 20th annual Young Gun of Wine Awards.
“While there are currently six trophies awarded at the Young Gun of Wine Awards, the awards are about much more than who takes home which piece of silverware,” said Young Gun of Wine founder Rory Kent. “They’re about celebrating young people within the industry as a whole, connecting young audiences to Australian wine culture, and particularly about honouring the exceptional efforts of our talented Top 50. We’re thrilled to be able to bring this vibrant and diverse cohort together – despite the difficulties facing the Australian wine industry, its future has never looked brighter.”
Here’s what twenty years of work looks like in numbers: when the Awards commenced in 2007, just 19% of young Australians expressed confidence in wine. That figure now stands at 50% – a shift that bucks downward trends seen in nearly every other wine-drinking country on earth. “Young Gun of Wine began with the mission of connecting young adults to wine and wine culture,” Kent said. “As the Australian wine industry navigates an exceptionally difficult landscape, that confidence amongst young consumers is more necessary than ever, and we’re proud to have played a role in building it.”
Above and opposite: Scenes from the 20th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards, held as a dinner presentation in Melbourne.
“Young Gun of Wine began with the mission of connecting young adults to wine and wine culture. As the Australian wine industry navigates an exceptionally difficult landscape, that confidence amongst young consumers is more necessary than ever.”
Above and opposite: Scenes from the 19th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards, held as a dinner presentation in Melbourne.
The Top 50 winemakers shortlisted for the awards gathered in Melbourne last night after a trade event tour that showcased their work to wine professionals in Sydney, and Brisbane. After a long day connecting with Melbourne-based sommeliers, wine buyers, writers, and communicators, the Top 50 assembled for a dinner celebration – and for the trophy recipients to be revealed.
“The social aspect is a hugely important part of the Awards program,” Kent said. “Young winemakers often work in regional or rural parts of Australia, where it’s difficult to meet other young makers. One of the best parts of the Awards process is getting to see winemakers connect with each other, create personal and professional relationships, and share their insights. Those friendships can make all the difference for emerging winemakers and businesses – especially as the industry wrestles with a challenging economic landscape.”
Nick Stock, wine critic and owner of Willunga’s Old Bush Inn, has been a fixture of the Young Gun of Wine judging panel since the awards commenced. “The twenty-year milestone is a point to reflect on just how much this layer of the Australian wine scene has evolved,” he said. “We have witnessed an incredible era of winemaking iconoclasts, and are now seeing a powerful wave of deep commitment and diligence to the whole process of making wine. The wines have never been better.” Stock has seen every cohort come through since 2007, and the sentiment he keeps returning to is the same: “This has always been a celebration of people first and foremost, united by a common love for producing great wine. To see this group celebrate together is the most important part of what this platform offers young winemakers.”
Opposite: Zoe Ladyman, Nick Stock and Isabelle Szyman present trophies at the 20th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards. Above: Emily & Hugh Spinaze of Glover Wines, and other guests, at the dinner presentation event in Melbourne.
“One of the best parts of the Awards process is getting to see winemakers connect with each other, create personal and professional relationships, and share their insights. Those friendships can make all the difference for emerging winemakers and businesses.”
The 2026 judging panel consisted of Young Gun of Wine’s Rory Kent; Nick Stock, wine critic and hotelier; Meg Brodtmann MW, winemaker, wine educator, and wine communicator; Zoë Ladyman, national business development manager, Primavera Selections; Isabelle Szyman, wine buyer and events co-ordinator, Rathdowne Cellars; and the 2025 Young Gun of Wine – Owen Latta, winemaker, Eastern Peake and Latta Vino.
Our heartfelt congratulations to all of the finalists – a collection of thoughtful and hard-working makers who are all playing an important part in shaping the future of Australian wine. Here are the 2026 trophy winners:
Opposite and above: Marcus Torzi of Whispers of Chaos.
The Best New Act is an award to single out the hottest new wine label.
The Barossa Valley is one of Australia’s most storied wine regions – and one of its most stylistically entrenched. A region built on powerful, concentrated reds is facing a world that has moved toward freshness, lightness and accessibility, and the makers who will lead it forward are those with an instinct for restraint and an eye for what’s actually delicious. Marcus Torzi is one of those makers. His label Whispers of Chaos uses Italian stoneware, unconventional blends and a calibrated lightness of touch that producers twice his age are still reaching for – and it has announced itself as one of the most exciting new wine projects in the country.
“A huge thanks to everyone who has supported me throughout my first release!” Torzi said. “It’s been great to be recognised by Young Gun of Wine at this stage of my wine journey. I launched Whispers of Chaos while still studying Viticulture and Oenology, so to have my wines considered worthy of this award amongst a field of so many talented young producers in Australia means a lot. One of the best parts of the process has been connecting with other young winemakers, who are all pushing Australian wine forward in their own way. It’s inspiring to be a part of such a talented group of people.”
Above: the Danger Zone trophy. Opposite: Michael Williams of L’Anima. His 2024 L’Anima ‘Sobremesa’ Passvm Muscat Blanc is rich and complex in the way only the ancient appassimento technique can produce, but it wears that richness lightly, with an appeal that has nothing to do with the cloying stickies of Australian wine’s past.
Danger Zone: 2024 L’Anima ‘Sobremesa’ Passvm Muscat Blanc
The Danger Zone trophy recognises risk-taking, original thought, and daring winemaking – wines that could go down in a blaze of glory but instead stick the landing and deliver brilliance in the glass. This wine is exactly that.
Forget everything you think you know about Australian dessert wine. The 2024 ‘Sobremesa’ Passvm Muscat Blanc from L’Anima’s Michael Williams is a high-wire act in the glass – marzipan and honey and orange blossom, cut through with a saline freshness drawn straight from McLaren Vale’s oceanic edge. It is rich and complex in the way only the ancient appassimento technique can produce, but it wears that richness lightly, with an appeal that has nothing to do with the cloying stickies of Australian wine’s past. Making a compelling dessert wine in a market that currently runs from sugar takes audacity. Williams has it in spades.
“Winning the Danger Zone Award is great,” Williams said. “It provides a sense of validation and vindication for following your own ideas and intuition, no matter how far those might stray from conventional winemaking wisdom. It has also been a great opportunity to finally connect some of the wines that I’ve tasted with the people who made them – and that’s all been made possible because of the passion behind Young Gun of Wine. So thank you to Rory and the team, the judging panel, my patient growers – and last, but certainly not least, my constantly supportive partner and family, who make it all possible.”
Above: Ella Hoban and Rory Kent. Opposite: Ella Hoban. Working at such a high level in a business as large as Vinarchy means that she has to battle misconceptions about her role – chief amongst which is the idea that her work is hands-off. “There isn’t a single Croser vineyard that I haven’t walked myself this vintage,” she says.
Ultimately, the most important judges of wine are the people who buy it – and this year they voted emphatically for Ella Hoban. As Group Sparkling Winemaker for Vinarchy, Hoban oversees production across Croser, Jacob’s Creek, Grant Burge and Yarra Burn, among others: a portfolio that spans everything from affordable everyday prosecco to premium celebration cuvées. She also lectures in sparkling winemaking at Adelaide University, serves as Croser’s global brand ambassador, and helps run Wine Biddies, a networking program for young women in winemaking. All of that, and she’s still hands-on at the tasting bench and in the vineyard every vintage.
“I love making sparkling wine, and it’s so exciting watching Aussie fizz go from strength to strength,” Hoban said. “I’m thrilled that there’s so much love out there for fizz that people voted for me! It was such a genuine surprise to win the People’s Choice. The other members of this year’s Top 50 are all such interesting and thoughtful winemakers – it’s been great talking with them about different approaches to and philosophies about winemaking. It’s a credit to Young Gun of Wine for being able to gather so many wonderful people together and facilitate those connections. A huge congratulations to all the other winners!”
The Vigneron Award goes to a winemaker who grows the grapes from which the wines come – and few embody that ethos as completely as Blanck, who in addition to Kerri Greens also operates Blanck Specialised Viticulture, lending his skills to other Mornington Peninsula growers.
Lucas Blanck is, by his own admission, happiest sitting on his tractor. That sensibility – quiet, grounded, soil-first – runs through everything about Kerri Greens. Blanck leases and farms four vineyards across Mornington Peninsula, managing via organic practices across all sites and controlling everything from pruning to harvest himself. The label is deliberately counter-programmed to the Peninsula’s chardonnay-and-pinot dominance: riesling is the true focus, made in an Alsatian idiom that has no real precedent in the region, alongside sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot noir and a small clutch of aromatic varieties.
“It’s a tremendous honour to receive the Vigneron Award,” Blanck said. “This recognition reflects the dedication of the entire Kerri Greens team, whose hard work and passion make achievements like this possible. Our vineyards are at the heart of our business – they inspire everything we do and continue to produce wines that speak of place and vintage. To be recognised among such talented peers is truly humbling!”
Opposite: Matt Large – a winemaker who walked away from one of Australia’s most celebrated cellars to farm his own vines. Above: Matt Large collects his Winemaker's Choice trophy.
The Winemaker’s Choice is voted on by the gathered finalists themselves – makers tasting each other’s wines and deciding who among them deserves the recognition of their peers. This year, that recognition went to Matthew Large: a winemaker whose cumulative refinement over years at the helm of Shaw + Smith, Tolpuddle and MMAD earned him a reputation as one of Australia’s most technically gifted, and who at the end of 2024 walked away from all of it to farm his own grapes. Praeter began in 2018 as a side-project built around a love of nebbiolo, sparked by a vintage at Figli Luigi Oddero in Barolo. It has since grown into a cross-hemispheric label spanning nebbiolo-based wines from the Pyrenees, Piedmont, and Adelaide Hills – and from the 2025 vintage, a chardonnay and pinot noir from Southern Fleurieu and Adelaide Hills vineyards that Large now farms himself.
“The wine industry is such an invigorating and inspiring place,” Large said. “Taking the leap to focus on my own project was always going to be a scary thing, but getting the recognition of my peers with this award really means an incredible amount and helps validate all the hard work. Congratulations to the other winners and all the shortlisted winemakers – as always, it’s a very exciting array of wines.”
Above and opposite: Lauren and Matthias Utzinger – in their Tasmanian winery and at the trophy presentation event in Melbourne.
Lauren and Matthias Utzinger met in Iran, travelled the world together, and ended up planting a vineyard on a steep north-east facing slope in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley. That’s the short version.
The longer one involves a winemaking career spanning Switzerland, Provence and the southern Rhône, a blank canvas of uncompromised soil, and a certified-organic estate planted at 6,500 vines per hectare – a density that demands commitment and rewards patience. Their ‘Roter Satz’ is a true field blend of five varieties: radically, cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir are harvested on the same day and fermented together as a single, dangerously delicious wine. Swiss varieties are now in the ground. A blanc de blancs is quietly ageing toward its planned 2027 release. A gewürztraminer destined for terracotta amphora is on the way. The experimental block that took six years to realise is only just beginning to find its voice.
Throughout all of it, the wines speak not of winemaking chops but of place – demonstrating that technical skill and conceptual bravado can happily coexist with the fundamental vigneron’s conviction that wine is grown, not made.
“Lauren and Matthias’s work with Utzinger represents the best elements of the changes happening in how young winemakers approach their work,” said Nick Stock. “They demonstrate that it’s possible for people with passion and determination to tackle every single aspect of making great wine – from start to finish – without compromise. Their commitment to the craft of winegrowing and winemaking is inspirational – and for this reason, as well as many others, they are truly deserving winners of the 2026 Young Gun of Wine Award.”
“We believe that the real magic happens when you get slightly outside of your comfort zone,” Lauren and Matthias said. “For us, this meant planting a high-density vineyard from scratch, opting for organic certification, and making wines with intention and integrity that speak of their place.”
When the Utzingers bought their farm in 2018, Matthias planted it entirely to his own specifications – the result of years studying vineyards across Europe, New Zealand and Australia, selecting clones he considered most adapted to the site and most likely to produce textural expression from each variety. The organic conversion that followed has added another layer of minerality and complexity. Long-term plans include an aromatic white blend in the tradition of the Viennese gemischter satz – a field blend of multiple varieties harvested and fermented together, a homage to Matthias’s Germanic origins.
“We feel very honoured being able to bring the trophy back to Tasmania,” Lauren and Matthias continued. “We wouldn’t be where we are if it weren’t for our mentors, family, and winemaking colleagues, the ongoing support from all the venues that stock our wine around the country, and, of course, our wonderful customers. Thanks to Young Gun of Wine for championing the new and upcoming producers over the many years. It’s fabulous to see such a great bunch of people coming together and celebrating the most wonderful drink in the world. Now, back to pruning…”
Twenty years in, the Young Gun of Wine Awards remain what they have always been: a celebration of people, a platform for the ambitious and the unconventional, and a reminder that Australian wine’s future is being built right now, by these makers. Here’s to the next twenty.
Above: Matthias and Lauren Utzinger with their 2026 Young Gun of Wine Award trophy, and YGOW founder Rory Kent. Opposite: the winners of the 20th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards. “While there are currently six trophies awarded at the Young Gun of Wine Awards, the awards are about much more than who takes home which piece of silverware,” said Kent. “They’re about celebrating young people within the industry as a whole, connecting young audiences to Australian wine culture, and particularly about honouring the exceptional efforts of our talented Top 50.”
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