The inaugural Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wineries selected by Campbell Mattinson is a celebration of the best wineries of right now. Below is the list of wineries ranked from 76 to 100 from across Australia.
"In short, this is a list of producers who know, in their heart and in their head, that consumers don’t owe them a living. This is a list of producers who are prepared to stake their reputation on every single wine they release." – chief editor Campbell Mattinson
View the Top 100 Wineries: 1–25
View the Top 100 Wineries: 26–50
View the Top 100 Wineries: 51–75
Wantirna Estate | Eastern Peake | Juniper | Spinifex | HEAD Wines | Traviarti | The Story Wines | Stefano Lubiana | Alkina Wine Estate | Scotchmans Hill | Seppeltsfield | Best's Wines | Swinney | Mount Langi Ghiran | Parker Coonawarra Estate | Thomas Wines | Dalwhinnie | Paul Osicka | Ricca Terra | Sailor Seeks Horse | Nick O’Leary Wines | Rochford Wines | Two Hands Wines | MMAD Vineyard | Mordrelle Wines
Yarra Valley, Victoria
Production doesn’t come much tinier than this. Wantirna Estate is an outlier of the Yarra Valley in geographical terms but, even so, Maryann Egan’s wines could easily be described as the heart and soul of the region. The annual offering here is a chardonnay, a pinot noir, a cabernet-merlot and a cabernet franc-merlot – and sometimes only a barrel or two of each. But every year these wines feel so cool and calm that you can’t help but want to collect them.
5 ★ winery | Halliday profile | Wantirna Estate
Ballarat, Victoria
When Owen Latta was 15 years old his winemaker dad tripped on a winery hose and couldn’t continue with vintage. Owen, before and after school, stepped in to the breach, and – incredibly – started making the estate’s wines. At 15! That was over 20 years ago now but the Eastern Peake story remains remarkable, now courtesy of the sheer quality of wine in the glass. This estate, near Ballarat, north-west of Melbourne, produces tense, characterful chardonnay and pinot noir of outstanding quality.
5 ★ winery | Halliday profile | Eastern Peake
Margaret River, Western Australia
Mark Messenger has been the winemaker at Juniper for the past 25 years. He recently – on his own terms – stepped away from the business and he did so in the best of ways: with the entire wine range in fantastic shape. You get everything you’d expect of one of Margaret River’s best: classic chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and malbec – but you also get tempranillo and other fresh-faced blends, all to a high standard, all exacting.