James Kellie has set the Great Southern alight like no one else since his first vintage in 04.

This family-owned and run winery dates back to 1858 and makes an extensive range of wines, around half a million cases even after the recent sale of the Long Flat brand.

Philip Shaw, once ROSEMOUNT’s almost legendary winemaker, has long owned and developed a vineyard of his own.

An experienced Hunter Valley winemaker with stints at LINDEMANS and Rothbury Estate under hisbelt, Keith Tulloch now makes wine under his own name.

De Bortoli’s Riverina operation is a vast winery based in the Riverina near Griffith. Output is around 4.5 million cases a year and almost all is accounted for by bulk-market labels.

At times considered eccentric by some of his neighbours, the late Bailey Carrodus produced a remarkable array of very good to exceptional wines even if on occasion the results have been variable.

Tim Kirk is realising the potential first developed by his father Dr John Kirk, an Australian research scientist of Irish descent.

A benchmark Lower Hunter winery, Brokenwood was established in 1970 by a number of partners including former lawyer and wine writer James Halliday.

Ten Minutes by Tractor derives its name from three vineyards, each owned by (and named after) the founding families and located 10 minutes apart from each other.

Jonathan Maltus was the first English wine producer to achieve a 100% score from legendary wine guru Robert Parker for one of his wines, in fact he might be the ONLY English wine producer to achieve this.

Shadowfax (a name taken from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings) established in 2000, is an exciting operation based in Werribee Park between Melbourne and Geelong.

Top-notch small estate now producing upwards of 15,000 cases annually. McCall is a Burgundy fan and aims to make well structured, ageworthy wines.

This dynamic, go-ahead organic vineyard (now totalling 90 ha) and winery operation owes its reputation to winemaker the late Trevor Mast.

Moorooduc Estate in northerly Mornington Peninsula was established in 1981 by Richard and Jill McIntyre, who planted the McIntyre vineyard in 1983, mainly to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (with a small amount of Shiraz).

I did say in my blog from Setúbal on May 1st that I would be sending more detail. Well, it’s taken a bit of time, mainly because I have had to edit down a very lengthy interview with Antonio Saramago, in my opinion, the best producer on show at the show, which you can see below. That’s not to say…

Before setting up his eponymous label, Mac Forbes’ CV included stints in the Yarra Valley at Mount Mary and in Europe, including Austria, where he still makes wine.

This newish Mornington Peninsula winery, located in the warmer north of the peninsula on low vigour sandy clay soils, is one of its largest with 34 ha of vineyard to draw on.

Though House of Arras wines are made at HARDYS’ McLaren Vale winery, where Constellation’s sparkling wine supremo Edd Carr is based, the fruit for Constellation’s flagship sparkling brand is rigorously sourced from Tasmania, latterly exclusively from Eastern Tasmania.

The production here is small and the wines can be very difficult to track down but it is worth the effort. As with the finest producers in the northern Rhône, the approach is one of minimal intervention: no irrigation, minimal vineyard treatments and virtually sulphur-free reds.

In 1999 Gary Farr released four new varietals from 4.8 ha of his own vineyards adjacent to BANNOCKBURN.

Production here remains small at around 2,500 cases per year, although the 3 ha vineyards planted in the 1980s have now doubled in size thanks to more recent plantings. A small amount of wine is exported but most of it is accounted for by a dedicated mailing list.

Phil Sexton it seems has a thing about Chardonnay. More than 20 years ago he established Devil’s Lair in the Margaret River and soon produced a leading example. In 1997 he and his family took an almighty leap eastwards and took root again in the Yarra Valley.

In 1995, David & Wendy Lloyd acquired Eldridge Estate. The vineyard, originally planted in 1984, is located on a north facing slope at 225 metres above sea level on rich terra rossa volcanic loam.

William (Bill) Downie established his eponymous label in 2003. His passion is Pinot Noir and he makes no less than three from the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland in Victoria

This is the best winery in the Pyrenees region and one of the best both in the state and Australia.

There are few biodynamic estates in Australia but this is already the most important. The small estate is based just outside Beechworth at 500m elevation and benefits from hot days and cool nights.

This Clare Valley producer maintains a cult following by sticking rigidly to a formula of maximising the extraordinary fruit produced from 12 ha of vines. The winery dates from 1895 and little seems to have changed in the 100 years or so since

Yalumba is the only big Australian wine company still to be family-owned and, founded in 1849, is Australia’s oldest family-owned company at that. Winemaking, led by Brian Walsh since the late 1980s, is now headed by the talented Louisa Rose.

Established in the mid-1990s, Torbreck became one of the most raved-about Barossa wineries by the turn of the century and is one of the few which produces genuinely outstanding wines that matched some of the hype.

Brian Croser’s new project is a partnership with Bordeaux’s Jean-Michel Cazes (Ch. LYNCH-BAGES) and BOLLINGER - who were a former partner with Croser at PETALUMA.

Turkey Flat has a priceless resource of old-vine Barossa fruit. The Schulzes have had the good fortune to have the vines in the family since 1865 (some planted in the 1840s!) though have only been making their own wines since 1990.

The warehouse winemaking operation begun by Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith in 1989 has evolved into an estate-based (Balhannah and Woodside)

From an unpromising location, the hot Adelaide Plains, comes a quite exceptional range of wines, the result of innovation and talent that any wineproducing country would be proud of and which cautious winemakers can only dream of.

The leading Australian brand since the renaissance of Australian wine in the early 1950s, Penfolds remains high in consumers’ estimation despite recent upheavals. Grange, Australia’s most consistently great wine over 5 decades, is the pinnacle of production.

Steve Pannell’s background is as eclectic as his flagship range, which encompasses McLaren Vale stalwarts Grenache, Shiraz and Shiraz/Grenache but also an Adelaide Hills Nebbiolo. Pannell,