The Australian, June 23, 2007, Wine - 'Young Gun of Wine 2007', Max Allen.

Choosing the inaugural winner of the Young Gun of Wine Award from a shortlist of 22 worthy candidates was one of the most pleasurable judging gigs I've ever had - not least because it involved tasting all the finalists'wines. This amazing line-up made me feel the future of the wine industry is in very safe hands. But, crikey,
choosing between them was tough.

Should Jim Chatto get the award for the great work he’s doing with semillon and shiraz in the Hunter? Should it go to Dan Buckle for the fab things he’s doing at Mount Langi Ghiran? Kerri Thompson for the wines she made at Leasingham and her passionate support for sustainable and biodynamic winegrowing? Dom and Krystina Morris for their delicious Pondalowie tempranillo?

All the grape-treaders – and the others I haven’t space to mention – deserve applause, but in the end, we judges gave the nod to young Matt Gant for the brilliantly innovative and delicious wines he’s making under the (equally brilliant) First Drop label: check out www.firstdropwines.com to see what I mean.

Then 200 members of the Melbourne-based V-Know wine club tasted through the same line-up of wines and voted for the people’s choice Young Gun (drum-roll, please): Troy Kalleske, who produces increasingly magnificent reds at his family’s organic vineyard in the Barossa.

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