Trophy nights love winemakers. This year Halliday also spotlighted the vineyard scientist.
Drinks Trade’s Halliday 2026 coverage names Dr Dylan Grigg Viticulturist of the Year for work through Vinya Vella and Meristem Viticulture. Grigg’s lane is soil, vine balance and evidence-led canopy choices — the decisions that happen months before a ferment tank smells of yeast. In a vintage defined by heat swings and smaller national crush numbers, that skill set is not niche. It is survival with flavour attached.
Mini-lesson: viticulture is crop design. Yield targets, irrigation timing and shoot thinning decide whether a grape arrives with acid and aroma or only with sugar. Drinkers taste viticulture even when the label only prints the winemaker’s name.
Gen Z should care because climate risk is now a shopping question. Choosing wine from estates that hire serious vine people is choosing adaptation over luck. That beats a flavoured can with zero farm behind it.
Ask producers how they measure soil moisture and heat spikes. The answers separate theatre from craft.
Pattern: Meristem science, Viticulturist of Year. Great bottles start in the dirt diary.