Tasmania Archives - Young Gun of Wine

Andrew Trio

Andrew Trio is head winemaker at Small Wonder, a Tasmanian wine estate on the western ridge of the Tamar Valley, with a second vineyard in the Coal River Valley acquired in 2024. The 20-hectare Tamar estate – originally planted in 1998 as Goaty Hill and purchased by the Overstory group in 2020 – is now certified organic, equipped with a purpose-built winery completed in 2024, and producing pinot noir, chardonnay, riesling, sauvignon blanc and pinot gris across two ranges: the accessible Landscape Series and the premium Auburn collection. The sparkling program, anchored by a blanc de blancs and a blanc de noir, has quickly become a point of distinction. The overarching philosophy is precise, restrained and site-driven – cool-climate tension over richness, freshness over weight, and the vineyard allowed to do most of the talking.

Jake Sheedy

Jake Sheedy co-founded Sisu in 2021 on a 95-hectare farm in Tasmania’s Coal River Valley, developing a 25-hectare vineyard from bare paddock, building a 400-tonne winery, and opening a cellar door – all within four years and on land that previously ran sheep. The name is Finnish, meaning something like quiet determination and inner grit shaped by nature’s most testing moments. It suits the project. The current range spans pinot noir, chardonnay, riesling, pinot gris, viognier, gewürztraminer, gamay, syrah and nebbiolo – each variety matched to one of three distinct soil types on the estate – with the wines characterised by fruit clarity, restraint and a winemaker whose instinct is to get out of the way when the site is doing its job.

Sam Rush

Sam Rush is a Tasmanian winemaker whose Rush Wines label – launched from the 2021 vintage and made in the Tamar Valley – makes small-batch, site-driven pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot gris from carefully selected vineyards, including a block of pinot noir in Rosevears that Rush leases and farms himself. The approach is wild fermentation, no fining, minimal filtration and a winemaker whose instinct is to let the fruit carry the wine rather than the cellar impose a shape on it. Rush Wines sits in the precise, cool-climate tradition that Tasmania does better than almost anywhere – unpretentious, fruit-forward and built to reflect the island honestly.

2022 Stefano Lubiana ‘Chicane’ Merlot Malbec

Tasmania’s most lauded red wines may be its pinot noirs, but the first red wine grapes to be planted there in the modern era were Bordeaux varieties. This wine shows that there’s also plenty of joy to be found in Tasmania’s richer reds.

Thomas New

Many of us dream of working for ourselves, but not everyone has the courage to pursue the dream – and fewer still do so with a goodly dose of introspection and humility. This is the path that Thomas New has taken on his journey to founding Future Perfect – his label dedicated to lo-fi, cool climate winemaking, circling around chardonnay and pinot noir. With no formal training as a winemaker – but plenty of experience from his former label La Petite Mort and subsequent vintages across Australia and around the world – New crafts wines that bottle the cool-climate freshness of his Tasmanian terroir.

Sierra Blair

There’s an old saying: “Good wine is made in the vineyard.” Winemaker Sierra Blair adds a self-deprecating coda: “ … and fucked up in the winery.” Having grown up in a family of California grape growers before studying viticulture and oenology at UC Davis, Blair has an intimate understanding of the relationship between what happens in the vineyard and what happens in the cellar. After graduating, she worked vintages in various regions of California, France, New Zealand and Australia, before falling in love with Tasmania. She has worked as a winemaker at Ghost Rock on the Cradle Coast since 2019, crafting their extensive range of estate wines – pinots noir, meunier, and gris, chardonnay, and sauvignon blanc, as well as single-site expressions of many of the above, rosé, and traditional method sparkling wines – alongside Ghost Rock’s more experimental Supernatural range, plus a small side project of her own in Zymo Wines. With her eye on both sides of the growing/making coin, Blair’s wines balance winemaker know-how with a deep respect for the work that goes into the fruit she uses.

2023 Apogee ‘Alto’ Pinot Noir

Tasmanian wine industry legend Andrew Pirie flexes his muscles with this impressive pinot noir. Bright and supple, with a surprising amount of ripe fruit on the palate, this wine shows the potential of Burgundian savoir-faire applied to Tasmanian terroir.

Matthias & Lauren Utzinger

Matthias and Lauren Utzinger are the Swiss-Tasmanian partnership behind one of the Tamar Valley’s most purposeful young estates. Matthias brings a European winemaking formation that spans Switzerland, Provence and the southern Rhône; Lauren brings a childhood steeped in northern Tasmania. Together they planted their five-hectare estate in Legana from scratch in 2018, certified organic, at a density of 6,500 vines per hectare – a figure that says everything about how seriously they take the vineyard as the foundation of the wine. The range spans pinot noir, chardonnay, syrah, riesling and a fumé sauvignon blanc across two tiers – the White Label and the Black Label estate range – with a growing experimental program of Swiss varieties imported by Matthias himself. Their ‘Roter Satz’ field blend won the Danger Zone trophy at the 2024 Young Gun of Wine Awards, with Winemaker’s Choice following in the same ceremony – only the third time in the competition’s history a winemaker has won two trophies at the same awards.

Andrew Trio

Andrew Trio

Jake Sheedy

Sam Rush

2022 Stefano Lubiana ‘Chicane’ Merlot Malbec

Thomas New

Sierra Blair

2023 Apogee ‘Alto’ Pinot Noir

Matthias & Lauren Utzinger

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