Hunter Valley Archives - Young Gun of Wine

Samuel Rumpit

Samuel Rumpit is a Hunter Valley-based winemaker whose Noman label – launched from the 2024 vintage – makes small-batch wines from alternative varieties sourced wherever they’re growing best that year, with no intention of repeating a wine or a region from one vintage to the next. The current range spans a McLaren Vale montepulciano, a Hunter Valley fiano and a tempranillo rosé, all made with Hungarian oak, minimal intervention and a deliberate refusal to take wine too seriously. Noman sits at the approachable, exploratory end of the Australian alternative variety conversation – swimming pool wine, as Rumpit calls it, made for you and your mates.

Emily & Hugh Spinaze

Emily (nee Glover) and Hugh Spinaze are a Hunter Valley couple who met in the cellar and never quite left. Both entered the wine industry straight out of high school – Hugh in 2013, Emily in 2016 – and Glover Wines, launched from the 2022 vintage, is the formal expression of what those years of shared experience have built toward: a small-batch, site-first label rooted in the Hunter’s classic varieties, made with a quiet technical philosophy that prioritises what the vineyard gives over what the winery adds. The range spans an Oakey Creek semillon, a Wollombi Brook chardonnay, a Hunter River Burg shyrah and a rosé – each tied to a specific site, each made entirely by the two of them from grape to bottle.

2025 Scarborough ‘Offshoot’ Tempranillo Joven

Is this wine particularly ‘varietal’? Nope. Is this wine unfeasibly delicious? Hell yes. This juicy, easygoing tempranillo isn’t here to teach you about what tempranillo should taste like – but it has more than enough interest and character to keep you drinking after the first glass.

2023 The Vinden Headcase Chenin Blanc

This chenin blanc from the Hunter valley not only challenges preconceptions about what the Hunter can achieve – it also shows a new facet of chenin blanc as an endlessly fascinating variety.

Valentina Moresco

What happens when you take a talented young winemaker from Piedmont, Italy’s premier wine destination, then train them in the scientific, precision-oriented ways of New Zealand, before landing them in the uniquely challenging subtropical environment of the Hunter Valley? You might end up with a figure like Valentina Moresco, whose journey from Montà to Krinklewood Estate has given her a love of both traditional winemaking and technical virtuosity that perfectly suits the unique demands of the Hunter’s climate. Taking over the reins at Krinklewood since vintage 2017, she crafts a suite of classic Hunter wines – semillon, chardonnay, shiraz, and verdelho – alongside more adventurous drops such as skin-contact gewürztraminer, lightly pétillant off-dry rosé, and traditional and Charmat-method sparkling wines. Reverential towards the Hunter’s storied past, but with an eye firmly on the future of the region, Moresco makes wines that have a lot to say about the present moment.

Rojer Rathod & Millie Shorter

What happens when you take two experienced hospitality professionals with no formal winemaking training, get them to fall in love with both winemaking and Sicilian grape varieties, and let them ferment wine in traditional Indian clay vessels? You might end up with something like Majama Wines, an exciting new Hunter Valley-based project by Rojer Rathod and Millie Shorter, whose second vintage release – a tight lineup of zibbibo, inzolia, and nero d’avola – has already turned heads in the wine trade. With a minimal-intervention philosophy in the cellar that’s been dialled in with a clear focus on Sicilian varieties and fermentation in clay, as well as some of the most striking packaging currently on shelves, Rathod and Shorter are setting themselves up to become a striking new voice in the Australian wine landscape.

Andrew Duff

Can you teach an old dog new tricks? If Andrew Duff’s wines are anything to go by, you certainly can. Duff brings all of the operational nous he’s garnered over a lengthy career in large-volume corporate winemaking to bear on the wines he crafts for two labels – reinvigorated Hunter Valley stars Briar Ridge, and his own Duff Wines – while shaking off the corporate strictures and profit-loss calculations. With a palate freshly honed by the infamous Len Evans Tutorial and a winemaking vision sharpened by the Wine Australia Future Leaders program, Duff is ready to flex his muscles and write the second act of his winemaking story.

Kenisha & Alisdair Tulloch

Kenisha and Alisdair Tulloch’s Aeon Wines is a Hunter Valley label with geology at its heart – quite literally. The single-vineyard wines are named after the soil types they come from, with the geology and climate of each site depicted on the label artwork and the grape variety relegated to the back. The current range spans the Alluvium field blend of syrah, touriga nacional and viognier from the Field of Mars Vineyard; the Vertosol syrah from Tawarri in Merriwa; the Ferrosol syrah from a small leased block; the Light Dry Red – a nod to the Hunter’s historic shiraz and pinot noir burgundy blends; and the Soleil Fumé semillon from the Latara Vineyard. All fruit for the single-vineyard wines is grown and managed by Alisdair himself. The motto is Wines of Earth and Sky, and the wines live up to it.

Samuel Rumpit Noman