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 (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.
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.
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 grew up in a winegrowing family in Montà, Piedmont, studied viticulture and oenology in Alba – directly between Barolo and Barbaresco – and has been making wine at Krinklewood Biodynamic Vineyard in the Hunter Valley’s Broke Fordwich subregion since 2018. Now promoted to General Manager of the estate, she oversees not just the winemaking but the broader life of the farm – vineyard, grounds and livestock included – while continuing to craft a range that spans Hunter classics alongside skin-contact wines, sparkling and a non-alcoholic offering. What began as the meeting of Piedmontese tradition and New Zealand precision has become something distinctly her own: rigorous, inventive and deeply connected to a place she never expected to call home.
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.
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.
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