Young Gun of Wine has announced the 45 finalists in the 6th Annual Vineyard of the Year Awards.
WBM – Australia’s Wine Business Magazine is a partner.
The finalists include Box Grove Vineyard in Nagambie Lakes, Caledon Estate in the Coal River Valley and Chalmers Heathcote Vineyard.
You can see the full list of 45 finalists here.
“These awards are here to advance the regional identity of Australian wine and promote leading-edge sustainability and innovation in winegrowing, and there has never been a more important moment to celebrate a group like this,” says Rory Kent, founder of Young Gun of Wine and the Vineyard of the Year Awards.
“Australians are tired.
“Years of rising costs – groceries, rent, energy, fuel – have worn down household budgets and community confidence in ways that statistics struggle to capture.
“Just when interest rate relief seemed within reach, global fuel disruptions and renewed inflation pushed the Reserve Bank back the other way.
“The recovery that was supposed to arrive has been deferred, again.
“And yet, out in the vineyards, something inspiring is happening.”
Rory says a cohort of grapegrowers is demonstrating what resilience actually looks like in practice.
“Not as a buzzword,” he says. “Not as a brand position. As a daily act: farming smarter, building healthier soils, finding new income streams, reducing costs by reducing dependence. Making better wine in the process.”
This year, their story feels like more than just a viticulture story. It feels like an answer.
“What strikes you, across the full breadth of this year’s 45 finalists, is that sustainability is not treated as a marketing position.
“It is a survival strategy – and increasingly, a competitive advantage.
“When you stop buying synthetic herbicides, your input costs fall.
“When you build soil biology, your vines resist drought without irrigation.
“When you regenerate vegetation and ditch pesticides for natural predators, the ecosystem starts to look after itself.
“When you generate more solar power than you consume, you feed it back to the grid.
“The finalists in these awards have understood something that is increasingly urgent: the three pillars of sustainability – environmental, economic and social – are not competing priorities. They reinforce each other.”
The judges include Max Allen, Dianne Davidson AM, Richard Leask and Dr Colin McBryde.
The judging process includes a random site inspection program for rigour and accountability by James Hook and Matthew Wilson of DJ’s Growers Services.
Torch Bearer – ‘Ese Vineyard, Coal River, Tasmania.
Words by Rory Kent: “Forget gold. The most valuable asset on a modern Australian vineyard is a bucket of healthy dirt. This year’s finalists are doing extraordinary things to build it. Carbon levels have nearly tripled at some sites.
“Compost teas are brewed on-site. Worm farms are tended like kitchen gardens. Grape marc, sheep manure and green mulch go back to the rows they came from. Ducks patrol for snails.
“Chickens contribute in their own way. Cover crops with as many as 15 species are sown between rows – not just to suppress weeds but to feed the soil biology, fix nitrogen and attract beneficial insects.
“At one vineyard, university students bury cotton undies annually to measure microbial activity; the cotton disappears within weeks. These growers are not just farming grapes. They are farming ecosystems. And the proof is in the glass.”
“Several of this year’s finalists carry the scars of the 2019–20 bushfire season — and have turned that adversity into a fundamental reimagining of how they farm. One vineyard lost half its vines and in rebuilding invented its own cultivator. Another spent five years methodically restoring block by block. A third had fire return just this past season — the latest chapter in a longer story of resurrection. Fire forces reinvention. These growers reinvented well.”
“Some of the most remarkable material in these awards is also the oldest. Among this year’s finalists is a vineyard with vines planted over 100 years ago — still producing, and in 2026 delivering their 70th consecutive vintage. That is not a typo. Seventy harvests, without interruption.
“Elsewhere, century-old semillon on its own roots, never irrigated. Bush vines planted in 1948, still going. And at the other end of the spectrum: a vineyard whose owner spent a decade building soil before planting a single vine — and whose debut vintage proved every year of waiting worthwhile. Ancient or adolescent, this year’s finalists share one conviction: the vine is a long-term investment, not a short-term crop.”
Getting creative to stay alive
“Input costs are rising. Bulk wine demand – which is the major share of Australia’s exports – is soft. Finding buyers for grapes has rarely been harder. What sets this year’s finalists apart is the creativity they’ve brought to economic sustainability alongside the environmental kind.
“One vineyard turned a failed rootstock trial into a verjus now pouring at some of Australia’s best restaurants. Another converted old-vine fruit fetching $300 a tonne into a hand-harvested parcel commanding $2,500 — not through investment, but through better farming and the confidence to tell the story.
“Others have walked away from bulk contracts to supply the country’s most exciting independent makers at premiums the commodity market never offered. The lesson repeating across these profiles: quality costs less than volume, if you farm right.”
Topper’s Mountain Wines.
“Airborne fungal spores monitored in real time. Fruit weight tracked hourly while bunches are still on the vine. Autonomous spray units. Solar generation exceeding consumption, with surplus fed back to the grid. Smart drones trialled to replace bird netting.
“This year’s cohort is farming with tools that didn’t exist a decade ago — and deploying them not for novelty, but because they reduce inputs, cut emissions and make better wine. Welcome to the era of muddy boots and cloud computing.”
Rory says, “The 45 finalists range from multi-generational family estates to first-vintage projects planted on weekends by people who left other careers behind.
“What they share is a conviction that wine begins in the vineyard, that the vineyard is part of an ecosystem, and that the ecosystem – environmental, economic, social – needs to be in balance for any of it to endure.
“These awards recognise the work that makes Australian wine worth drinking. More than that, in the current climate, they recognise the work that makes Australian wine worth fighting for.”
The top growers are coming to trade events in Sydney (May 26), Brisbane (June 2) and Melbourne (June 16), where industry professionals – particularly sommeliers and retailers – will be able to learn more about these leading edge sustainability practices, and experience the connection between the place and manner in which the grapes are grown and the resultant characters in the glass.
Four trophies will be awarded, with the recipients announced in June.
Main photo: Jayden Ong in the Forest Garden Vineyard. Credit: Wine Australia.
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