Hot shots in the Gun

Vineyards have a habit of transforming people's lives. One minute, they're just sticks in the ground and the next they're all shoots and leaves, with bunches galore. For up-and-coming growers and winemakers, that's the fun part. It's what comes next that's hard.  Selling wines.

The enormity of that task is not lost on Rory Kent. The Melbourne wine communicator is the founder of Australia's annual Young Gun of Wine Awards, an initiative created back in 2007 to promote wine labels and winemakers on the rise. 

April 30 saw publication of this year's list of Top 50 finalists. 

It included Tasmanian wine producers Thomas New (Future Perfect Wines), Sierra Blair (Ghost Rock), and Matthias and Lauren Utzinger (Utzinger Wines).

This year is the 19th year in which the awards have been held.

"Back in 2007, the wine landscape was pretty stuffy and elitist, a bit of an old man's domain," Kent says.

"We wanted to break that. The Young Gun of Wine Awards started as an event to connect younger adults to the wines being made by the future stars of Australian wine. Creative winemaking mavericks who push boundaries. 

"Every year since 2007, we've scoured the country for the best emerging talent. Those looking for new ideas. Winemakers unwilling to compromise. 

"That's what sets these winemakers apart – they're change makers."

Publication of 2025's Top 50 followed two days of intensive tasting and discussion earlier in the year by a judging panel of six leading industry figures from across the country.

Among them was Tasmania's Marco Lubiana, named 2024 Young Gun of Wine. (Pictured last year with his trophy.) 

Lubiana is a sixth-generation winemaker. He inherited his love of wine and his passion for grape growing and winemaking from his parents, Monique and Steve Lubiana. The Derwent Valley couple have enjoyed their own special moments in the limelight over the years, including being jointly named among eight national finalists in the 2012 Winemaker of the Year competition conducted by Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine.

Young Gun of Wine finalists in 2025 are competing for trophies in six categories:

Young Gun of Wine; Best New Act; People's Choice; Winemaker's Choice; Danger Zone; and the Vigneron.

Each award applicant was invited to submit two wines for assessment, along with details of their winemaking projects, their ambitions and career achievements to date.

"Unlike other wine awards…these awards are about so much more than what's in the glass," Kent notes.

"Our winemakers are emerging thought leaders who inspire their peers with their adventurousness, and who seek innovative ways to cut through the noise to engage directly with both wine consumers and industry professionals.

"We champion winemakers who are not only crafting compelling wines, but who also demonstrate creative vision and daring. In 2025, over half of the finalists are new to the Top 50 winemakers list."

The inclusion of Matthias and Lauren Utzinger should surprise no-one already familiar with the awards and with the couple's fastidiously crafted wines. The Tamar Valley couple featured in last year's awards and won trophies for 2024 Winemaker's Choice and 2024 Danger Zone.

Their Winemaker's Choice trophy was a peer award, chosen by last year's Top 50 finalists. 

The Danger Zone is the only trophy among the winemaker awards that is presented for a specific wine product. It recognises a wine that in the panel's view successfully pushes the boundaries. The winning wine submitted in 2024 was the 2022 Utzinger Roter Satz, an estate-grown field blend created from five different grape varieties. Among them were Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir picked on the same day.

Thomas New's journey into wine has taken a meandering path, from vineyard roustabout in his home state of Queensland to wine pilgrim and vintage cellar hand in both New World and Old World settings. The Granite Belt, Margaret River, the Yarra Valley and Tasmania's Derwent Valley all figure on his domestic calling card. 

Sonoma County (California) and the Wachau Valley (Austria) reflect New's predilection for wines made from Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

The bloke from Brisbane set aside his tertiary qualifications in botany and ecology to adopt a hands-on approach to cool climate winemaking in Tasmania. New's lack of formal training in winemaking gives him a degree of freedom instead in creating his Future Perfect wines.

"There's no rules in winemaking as far as I'm concerned, which is what makes it so interesting," he says.

"Maybe the closest is to not force wines to be something they're not. Wines are living things and need time to go through all the seasons to find resolution."

Recent developments in the evolution of New's small-scale winemaking business will enable him to have even greater engagement with the seasonal nature of wine production. He's just taken on leasehold arrangements with Kinvarra Estate at Plenty (Derwent Valley) and Brownwood Vineyard at Campania (Coal River Valley). 

You can't get much closer to botany and ecology than growing grapes.

Growing grapes is in Sierra Blair's blood. These days the resident winemaker at Ghost Rock Vineyard near Devonport, she was born into a grape-growing family in Sonoma, California. Her grandparents Jim and Annie established Forchini Vineyards & Winery in 1996 after beginning their wine journey back in 1971.

It seems it would be only a matter of time before Blair found herself in a vineyard or winery somewhere. 

Kitted out with a degree in viticulture and oenology from the University of California (Davis), she subsequently worked vintages in various regions of California, France and New Zealand before ending up in Australia in 2015. Northern Tasmania became her final destination when she landed the plum job of assistant winemaker alongside Justin Arnold at Ghost Rock prior to the 2019 vintage.

Recent work in developing the vineyard's Supernatural range - along with her own side hustle at Zymo Wines - has given Blair opportunity to become more experimental in her approach to winemaking.

Ghost Rock's impressive 2024 Riesling, for example, includes components derived from barrel fermentation and lees stirring, techniques much more commonly associated with Tasmanian Chardonnay.

Blair's down-to-earth regard for vineyard sustainability also brought about the initiation of a new composting program that fully utilises grape marc previously treated as a winery waste product.

So who's in the Gun for June's 2025 awards?

Watch this space.

Last page update: 26 May 2026