Adelaide Hills Archives - Young Gun of Wine

Ansel Ashby

Everyone loves a comeback story, and with Pare Wine, Ansel Ashby is proving himself to be the Rocky Balboa of the South Australian wine scene. After having to shutter his first label, Gatch Wines, Ashby has returned with Pare – a new label in collaboration with wine merchant Andrew Williams. As the name suggests, Pare’s approach is all about minimalism, with their first release consisting of a compact collection of three single-site wines – two grenaches and a chardonnay –drawn from Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale. Winemaking is minimal-intervention, allowing the fruit and terroir to speak clearly. With Pare, Ashby is proving that less is definitely more.

Matthew Large

It takes some stones to leave a gig like senior winemaker at a company as renowned as Shaw + Smith, but that’s just what Matt Large did towards the end of 2024 in order to focus fully on what had until then been his side-project, Praeter. What started as a small side-hustle in 2018 to explore Large’s love of Nebbiolo has now blossomed into a full-time proposition, with Large jetting between Austraia and Italy to produce a bijou collection of wines – two single-site nebbiolos, another fortified and aromatised nebbiolo, an Italian red blend, and a pecorino, with a further single-site nebbiolo set for release later this year. Large has also taken on the management of two blocks of vines in the Adelaide Hills – pinot noir and chardonnay – which will become part of the Praeter stable with the 2025 vintage. Drawing on a wealth of international experience, Large makes wines that show his ability to subtly interpret the diverse terroirs of the Adelaide Hills, the Pyrenees, and Italy’s Langhe region.

Marcell Kustos

Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to help articulate what makes something special – and Marcell Kustos of Lvdo Wines (pronounced ‘ludo’) has more than enough fresh angles from which to approach the subject of Australian wine. Born in Hungary to a family of viticulturists and winemakers, his formal education is in food technology and wine science, and his professional background is as a sommelier and wine director at some of Australia’s most lauded fine dining destinations (including Restaurant Botanic and Penfolds Magill Estate). He brings these perspectives to bear in the making of his Lvdo Wines label – a collection of four core wines (white, red, rosé and orange/amber) and some one-off project wines that pay homage to the great wines of Australia, with an outsider’s twist. Equally at home analysing Brix levels in must as he is selling his wines to the restaurant trade, Lvdo Wines demonstrates that Kustos is an unlikely renaissance man with new and interesting things to say about Australian wine.

Gonzalo Sánchez

Gonzalo Sánchez brings international flair to the McLaren Vale. After graduating from the winemaking school at Universidad Juan Agustina Maza in Mendoza, Argentina, he quickly racked up an impressive list of international whistle-stops, working vintages in California’s Napa Valley, Portugal’s Dão, and Germany’s Pfalz before finding his vinous forever home in Australia. Fresh off stints at iconic Australian producers Mount Langi Ghiran and Wirra Wirra, Sanchez took on the lead winemaker role at McLaren Vale’s Lloyd Brothers in 2021 – leading a significant change in the business’s operations, and sharpening its focus as a producer. Here he makes a number of wines from fruit sourced from Lloyd Brothers’ vineyards in the Vale and in the Adelaide Hills, ranging from the traditional – McLaren shiraz; Hills sauvignon blanc – to the unorthodox: a sparkling wine made from picpoul and prosecco; a shiraz and pinot noir blend inspired by Maurice O’Shea’s pioneering Hunter blends. As if this weren’t enough, he also squeezes in time to run an Australian–Argentinian wine brand, Sánchez M. (alongside his sister, Rocia), a vineyard, Los Aromos (with his wife, Kate), and a spirit brand, Tiny Friday. An irrepressible character within the Vale’s tight-knit winemaking community, Sánchez clearly has energy to burn and no shortage of ideas.

2022 Leko Blanc

The entry level white for Jono and Damon Koerner’s Leko range, this is a bellwether for the thoughtfully subtle detail felt throughout the wines, with gentle spice across orchard fruits, and a pithy grip providing moreish tension.

Harry Scanlon

From the family vineyard In the Piccadilly Valley subregion of Adelaide Hills, at altitude close to 600m, Harry Scanlon of Scanlon Wines is carving out his niche with two new Pinot Noirs added to the family label in 2022, with the intent of crafting distinct pinot offerings from the family vineyard.

Hugh Guthrie

Hugh Guthrie’s Guthrie label stands as a testament to the art of micro-batch winemaking, where each bottle narrates a unique tale of its provenance. From the his family’s Adelaide Hills farm, where the Guthries have been for five generations, he crafts his wines, working with the local knowledge of the top local growers and special pockets of the Adelaide Hills. His range showcases a thoughtful curation of the region’s classic varieties, enriched by more unconventional offerings, such as his Pinot Noir Syrah blend and a nuanced grüner veltliner. Guthrie’s approach is one of subtle innovation – his aim is not to overpower but to unveil the inherent narrative of each vineyard block and grape, letting the land’s voice resonate through his wines. This philosophy yields creations that are not just beverages but reflections of the Adelaide Hills’ diverse terroir, captured through a winemaker’s lens that values authenticity and a gentle guiding hand over intrusive intervention.

Sarah Feehan and Melissa Gray

Launched in 2021, the Parley Wines range – owned and made today by Sarah Feehan and Melissa Gray – offers around 10 wines that defy the traditional paradigms of the regions they’re sourced from. Their wines in glass are as playful and approachable as the abstract geometric art that adorns each bottle. Sourcing grapes from across the Adelaide Hills, Langhorne Creek, and Coonawarra, they also breathe new life into a 1-hectare old vineyard in the Basket Range of Adelaide Hills. This carefully crafted collection from Parley Wine encapsulates the vibrancy of classic South Australian wine regions through a non-traditional lens, offering a fresh take on winemaking for wine enthusiasts and novices alike.

Ansel Ashby Pare Wine