Established in 2007, the Young Gun of Wine Award is our top trophy. It goes to an emerging producer that is not only making outstanding wine, but also demonstrating vision and leadership, and nailing the entire pitch, packaging and presentation of their product.
Taste is subjective. Every individual is the best judge of their own palate. Established in 2007, the People’s Choice is decided by the public, choosing from the list of finalists in our annual winemaker awards.
The Winemaker’s Choice trophy is our peer award, chosen by that year’s finalists. This trophy was introduced from 2013.
The Best New Act goes to a first-time finalist in our winemaker awards that is making a profound impression. This trophy was introduced from 2013.
The Danger Zone is the only trophy in our winemaker awards that goes to a wine product. It recognises a wine that successfully pushes the boundaries. This trophy was introduced from 2017.
The Vigneron is an award which celebrates makers that also lovingly tend to the land and the vines that they make wine from.
Tasmania
2007 Finalist
Hunter Valley
2007 Finalist
Tasmania, Hunter
2007 Finalist
Over the last decade or so, Jim Chatto has carved out a name for himself as one of this country’s finest winemakers. From grunt work in the Hunter Valley, Chatto showed his talent early and took on successive chief winemaker roles before simultaneously steering the great Hunter icon Mount Pleasant back into the limelight and…
Geelong
2007 Finalist
Nick Farr launched his Farr Rising label just after the turn of the millennium, stamping the already famous family name with an ambitious tag. In hindsight, that ascent now seems less presumptive and more a forgone conclusion with Nick now steering the winemaking for his label alongside the By Farr and Irrewarra labels (an Otway…
Barossa Valley
2007 Young Gun of Wine
2007 Finalist
Matt Gant’s geography degree was spun off course when a wine-loving professor “contrived” a study trip to France to taste wine. That minor diversion led to a terminal detour for Gant, axing the maps and globes for vintages around the world, before settling in the Barossa and co-founding First Drop wines in 2005. The First…
Tasmania
2007 Finalist
If Joe Holyman was a slightly better cricketer, the wine game might just have missed out on his prodigious talents. Although being a wicketkeeper and a couple of years older than Adam Gilchrist may have made the ultimate achievement somewhat tricky. (Joe did, however, don the whites nine times as a wicketkeeper for Tasmania in…
Heathcote
2007 Finalist
Emily McNally makes the wine and tends the vines at her family’s iconic property, Jasper Hill. While McNally hasn’t strayed far from that Heathcote base, she has maintained projects – Occam’s Razon and Lo Stesso – that have given her voice outside the recognisable tones of that Victorian icon, while tweaking and fine-tuning their core…
Barossa Valley
2008 Finalist
2007 People's Choice
2007 Finalist
With a Barossan grape-growing heritage as deep as they come, Troy Kalleske was always destined to make his name in wine. But bucking the family history of contract growing, Kalleske made and labelled the first wines under the family name after nearly 150 years of growing, and he did so with organic fruit from their…
Geelong
2007 Finalist
Langhorne Creek
2007 Finalist
Frankland River, Great Southern, Margaret River
2007 Finalist
Larry Cherubino has worked for or consulted to some of the biggest names in the world of wine, but it is with his Cherubino label that he gets to explore the regions of Western Australia his way. Cherubino employs both traditional methods perfected over decades of winemaking, as well as throwing out the rulebook and…
Barossa Valley
2007 Finalist
Grampians, Pyrenees
2010 Finalist
2007 Finalist
McLaren Vale
2007 Finalist
Emerging out of the Penfolds winemaking graduate program, then going on to spend some considerable time working in the Southcorp machine, while also inadvertently becoming somewhat of a poster child for the Parker-driven American fascination for South Australian red wine, it would be easy to make some assumptions about the kind of wines Corinna Wright…
South Australia
2007 Finalist
Bendigo
2007 Finalist
Victoria
2007 Finalist
Adelaide Hills
2007 Finalist
Barossa Valley
2007 Finalist
Margaret River
2007 Finalist
Victoria, Gippsland, Yarra Valley
2008 Finalist
2007 Finalist
William Downie is this century’s original enfant terrible of wine. Well, in Australia at least. A cheerful iconoclast that scythed through convention long before lo-fi winemaking had taken a firm grip on the emerging generation of makers. With a broad smile and a self-deprecating manner, Downie forged his own path of minimal intervention with scant…
Clare Valley
2008 Finalist
2007 Finalist
Wines by KT was started nearly a decade and a half ago on impulse. An opportunity to buy some excellent Clare Valley fruit saw Kerri Thompson jump from her corporate winemaking role and go it alone. Since then, Thompson has helped to redefine riesling in this country, with a drilling down on specific sites and…
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