2022 Finalist Archives - Young Gun of Wine

Alex Beckett

Alex Beckett started in the wine industry fresh from school as a means of putting himself through university. But falling for the industry and its people led him to shift his studies to winemaking, along with a head-first immersion into the wines of the world, with a lengthy stint in fine-wine shops giving him a global perspective. A swift rise to becoming the winemaker at Pokolbin star Briar Ridge in 2018 now seems him overseeing the making of classic, regional wines alongside emerging varieties, with both the traditional and the experimental treated with the same curiosity to make even more pure, subtle, layered and textured expressions.

Sam Hambour & Duncan Gibson

The old saying goes that “it takes a lot of great beer to make great wine”. Well, for Sam Hambour and Duncan Gibson, they certainly have a consistent supply of the frothy stuff. Co-founders and owners of Hop Nation Brewing Co., Hambour and Gibson are winemakers by trade, and with the brewing side successful established, winemaking has come back into the frame. With five vintages under their belts, the pair make a range of wine from fresh glou-glou styles to more mediative selections both from their base on the Mornington Peninsula and across Victoria.

Keira O’Brien

Keira O’Brien started Rivulet Wines in part to attempt to save Tasmania’s oldest commercial riesling planting and in part to express her sense of creativity, which was being stifled in her contract-winemaking day job. Over the vintages released, the portfolio has ebbed and flowed, with availability of the right fruit a key driver in her range. In 2022, she became the winemaker at the iconic east coast vineyard Freycinet, juggling her brand and one of Tasmania’s most vaunted. The Rivulet range consists of cross-regional pinot noir and a pair of single site offerings, with a single site chardonnay, barrel-fermented sauvignon blanc and a sylvaner filling the roster of wines, though a riesling will come back into the range from the 2023 vintage.

Alex Sherrah

Alex Sherrah’s career path was not always headed down the wine path, but his organic chemistry degree was useful as a building block to complete a winemaking diploma. That was after a vintage in McLaren Vale in the early 2000s that saw him fall for the work and the people. A practical apprenticeship for the next decade and a half followed, with his SHERRAH label lunched in 2017. Today, his focus is firmly Vale-centric, with both familiar varieties and those emerging getting equal airtime, while expressions range from elegant takes on the classics to a skinsy white, pét-nat and zero-sulphur red.

Andrew Kenny

Andrew Kenny launched his Kenny Wine label in 2021, focusing on Clare riesling and Adelaide Hills pinot. With the purchase of a vineyard in the Clare subregion of Auburn, the 2021 vintage saw a home-site shiraz join the portfolio, while an old vine grenache and a sangiovese were added in 2022. 2023 saw the introduction of a collaboration from the Pfalz region of Germany – a ‘Kenny X Gabel’ Riesling, with more riesling and a pinot noir to be released under this label. Kenny’s wines are classic in style, expressions of variety and sites he believes excel for specific grapes, and it is in the Clare Valley that the range of wines offers a particular exploration of sub-regionality.

Ashleigh Seymour

After more than a decade working in Italy, Ashleigh Seymour came to work at McLaren Vale biodynamic pioneer Paxton in 2021. Now with three vintages under her belt, her magnetic attraction to the Vale – with its complex geology, Mediterranean climate, rich community and industry-leading commitment to organics and biodynamics – has seen her make it her long-term home. Seymour is employing large-format oak and amphora, while limiting winery additions to sulphur, and then only what is needed to be protective across the range that includes Vale hero varieties – shiraz, grenache, cabernet sauvignon – as well as those emerging, such as tempranillo and graciano, with more in the pipeline.

Belinda Hughes

Belinda Hughes only officially joined her husband, John Hughes, at the helm of Rieslingfreak from the 2021 vintage. In reality, she had been intimately involved in the operation for five years prior. The excellent 2021 vintage, though, was a good time to formalise her role making riesling in a dizzying array of styles – from dry to sweet to sparkling to fortified – across the Clare and Eden Valleys. Now with three vintages under her belt, and beautifully cool ones at that, Hughes and her husband are overseeing the building of a new cellar door in Tanunda, while the range of wines has expanded, including an overdue foray into the Clare subregion of Watervale.

Charles Osborne

Wedged between the Black Summer bushfires and the pandemic pushing into full bloom, Charles Osborne pitched in and launched Dazma Wine Company, with fruit sourced from Northern Victoria. That first release consisted of three wines, a vermentino, a shiraz and a field blend of some 13 varieties – including such exotica as kerner, muscat ottonel, ehrenfelser, scheurebe, siegerrebe and rotgipfler – that were picked and fermented together. His wines are all vineyard specific, and they are all very much in the lo-fi camp, with Osborne keen to make democratically affordable and enjoyable wines.

Alex Beckett Briar Ridge