The Wines That Didn’t Get the Memo

30 October 2026. Words by YGOW.

Mataro is supposed to be gruff. Aglianico is supposed to be brooding. Orange muscat is supposed to be sweet. Sparkling is supposed to be frivolous. Nobody told these wines.

Wine comes with a lot of expectations. Grapes get reputations, regions get typecast, and new labels are supposed to take a few vintages to find their feet. This month’s CURATED selection didn’t read any of it: an elegant, floral mataro from vines close to 80 years old, a light and joyful aglianico, a dry orange muscat named after a Muppet, a marsanne that doesn’t need blending mates, a sparkling wine with a 20-year-old solera portion, and a debut pinot that stopped our judging panel in its tracks. All of it flying below most people’s radar, and made by people you’ve probably never heard of. Yet.

That’s the kind of thing that ends up in a CURATED pack. CURATED is Young Gun of Wine’s monthly membership: three hand-sourced bottles, chosen by our team, delivered to your door. The promise is simple: if it’s in a CURATED pack, we love it. Most months that means small-batch, limited-allocation, hard-to-find. This month, among the wines in rotation, there’s a mataro that’s more floral than gruff, an aglianico you can pour into a tumbler, a dry orange muscat, and a sparkling wine with a solera that’s been going for twenty years: each one proof that the memo isn’t always right.

Here’s what’s on offer this month.

Inside some of the packs

NV Nadeson Collis ‘Inception’ Brut Nature

2025 Rongo Wines ‘Prelude’ Aglianico

2025 Tillie J Pinot Noir

2025 Black & Ginger ‘Miss Piggy’ Orange Muscat/Riesling

2023 Alkimi Marsanne

2024 Hayes Family Wines Estate Mataro

Watch the videos above for a look inside some of the packs to land on members’ doorsteps.

The memo: Sparkling is supposed to be frivolous

Nadeson Collis ‘Inception’ is a non-vintage sparkling, and about as far from simple as it gets. Most of it is 2022 chardonnay from the cool Henty region. The rest comes from a solera that Ray Nadeson and Maree Collis started in 2006 and top up every vintage, an idea borrowed from fino sherry making. It’s Brut Nature, which means zero dosage, so the richness comes from only the grapes and time. It will please a crowd and reward quiet contemplation, and just 996 bottles were released.

The memo: Aglianico is powerful and brooding

Aglianico is known as the ‘Barolo of the south’: structured, tannic and built for the cellar. Ray Chen’s ‘Prelude’ went the other way. It’s light, silky and joyful, and tastes like a cross between Ribena and sarsaparilla. It’s a gateway red for people who aren’t into wine yet, and a gentle reminder to the rest of us that wine isn’t all about cellaring, point scores and food pairing. Pour it into a tumbler, and get some friends over.

The memo: Orange muscat is sweet

Orange muscat is usually made into sweet wines. Black & Ginger’s ‘Miss Piggy’ is having none of it. It’s 70% orange muscat, lifted by riesling, and very dry, with lychee, jasmine and ginger on the nose and a zesty, fresh finish. It smells like it should be sweet, and it isn’t. And the name? A frog turned up in the tank during the first vintage of muscat, and the Kermit and Miss Piggy jokes followed. Made in tiny quantities, from a Grampians label that likes growing the grapes nobody else in the region is.

The memo: Mataro is gruff and barnyardy

Mataro can be a gruff, tannic grape with meaty, barnyardy characters. Hayes Family’s ‘Estate’ didn’t get the memo. It’s beautifully floral and elegant, with real intensity, depth and substance, and it’s far from dense or heavy on the palate. It comes from a certified organic Barossa vineyard that’s been a multiple-time finalist in our Vineyard of the Year Awards, with vines averaging close to 80 years old. It did exceptionally well in our blind tasting of every Australian mataro we could find, and there’s a strong case that it’s the best mataro in the country.

The memo: Marsanne is a blending grape

Marsanne is often relegated to a supporting role, and relatively speaking, not many makers bottle it on its own. Stuart Dudine’s Alkimi marsanne from the Yarra Valley shows what we’ve been missing: lemon curd, marmalade on toast, and a texture that keeps changing as the chill comes off the bottle. Stuart is a vigneron in the full sense, growing the grapes and making the wine himself, and 2023 was the first vintage in which he grew this fruit.

The memo: New labels take a few vintages to get this good

When Tillie J first turned up in our Young Gun of Wine Awards five years ago, our judging panel were immediately struck by the quality of what was then a brand-new label – first releases are seldom that damn good! Since then Natillie Johnston has picked up a People’s Choice trophy in our awards, and her 2025 Yarra Valley pinot noir did really well in our latest Yarra Valley Pinot Noir Deep Dive. It’s light enough to smash on its own, with whole-bunch spice and structure underneath, and she’s building the label while working in other makers’ vineyards, developing her own land in the Upper Yarra and raising a young daughter.

All good reasons to question the memo. That’s exactly the kind of discovery CURATED exists to deliver.

Twenty Years of Discovery

Australian wine doesn’t have a quality problem. It has a discovery problem — and CURATED exists to close that gap.

This is what two decades in the trenches of Australian wine buys you: access to the wines doing something genuinely different, long before anyone else has heard of them. It’s the same instinct behind the Young Gun of Wine Awards, the Vineyard of the Year, the Deep Dives — now turned into three bottles a month, landing on members’ doorsteps before anyone else has caught on.

How it works

Joining takes about a minute. Choose your pack – reds, whites or a mix – and CURATED does the rest. Three bottles land on your door each month, chosen by our team. You tell us what hit, what missed, and what you’d like more of – and we dial future packs in around your own feedback.

No wine expertise required. No homework. No lock-in.

Get in before next month’s pack

This month’s packs are with members now. Next month’s is next – and once it’s allocated, it’s allocated. Join now to lock in your spot: three hand-sourced wines, chosen by a team that tastes thousands to find them, delivered straight to your door.

Join Young Gun of Wine CURATED

The Wines That Didn’t Get the Memo

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