Inside the Halliday Wine Companion 2026 Awards judging

Last Monday, the Halliday Tasting Team met at Re’em at Helen & Joey Estate in the Yarra Valley to determine the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion award winners.

Over three days, the team – made up of Jane Faulkner, Jeni Port, Shanteh Wale, Mike Bennie, Dave Brookes, Toni Paterson MW, Philip Rich, and Marcus Ellis, and moderated by Katrina Butler – blind tasted 146 wines across 17 brackets. Their scores were tallied, and, if necessary, wines were retasted and discussed, until a clear winner was found in each category. 

These category winners were then recalled on the final day and judged again, this time against each other, to decide the Sparkling, Fortified, Rosé, Red, White, and overall Wine of the Year.

Mike Bennie, Marcus Ellis, Jane Faulkner, Philip Rich, Katrina Butler, Toni Paterson MW, Jeni Port, Shanteh Wale and Dave Brookes.

This was the fifth time the Tasting Team have gathered to determine the Halliday Award winners in this way. This collaborative process, first introduced in 2021 for the 2022 guide, is not only fairer and more thorough (each taster puts forward the best wines from their respective regions, so it’s less likely any will be missed, and the winners are then determined by consensus), it also allows the team to benchmark their region’s wines, as well as their own palates, against the others.

The Awards judging is also an opportunity for each taster to discuss their nominations for Winemaker of the Year, Viticulturist of the Year, and Dark Horse, which they did over dinner at Re'em on the first night.

While we can’t reveal the results just yet – you’ll need to wait until the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion is released in late August – we can divulge the highlights.

Chardonnay, unsurprisingly, performed strongly (and with 16 wines was tied with shiraz as the largest category), as did riesling, pinot noir, semillon, and cabernet sauvignon. But it was the shiraz and, interestingly, rosé brackets that sparked the most debate.

The Tasting Team judging the chardonnay bracket.

There were two new categories this year. For the first time, grenache was judged as a straight varietal wine (in previous years, it’s sat under grenache and blends). For the first time in Wine Companion history, more straight grenache was submitted for tasting than grenache blends, which is why the category was introduced. The strength of the bracket, though, ought to have been justification enough. Phrases like, “that was off the charts,” “hallelujah,” and “very classy” were thrown around by the Tasting Team once the wines were revealed, with each member agreeing that all 11 were worthy of the win. 

The ‘wild card’ category was also introduced this year, which gave the Tasting Team an opportunity to submit a wine they loved but that didn’t fit within the usual criteria. These left-field wines may have seen extended skin contact, been aged under flor or oxidatively handled, been fermented in an interesting vessel, been made from alternative varieties or comprise interesting blends. Some of them just came with a good story. For the tasters, this category was arguably their favourite. Some truly delicious and unique wines were discovered and shared (and in some cases, purchased on the spot), which led to lots of chatter about the future direction of this brand-new category as well as a greater conversation around judging and wine criticism in general. 

The exterior of Re'em – Helen & Joey Estate's 16-room hotel and restaurant. 

But perhaps the biggest highlight was seeing how evenly spread the winners were across the country. We couldn’t have planned it better if we’d tried.

There’s no doubt it’s been a tough few years for the wine industry, but if the results of these three days of judging are anything to go by (and truly, what better indication is there?), Australian wine is in a very good place.

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