Vinya Vella

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Vinya Vella is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.

Vinya Vella is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.
Only the best of Australia’s best wineries are ranked as a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.

Vinya Vella doesn’t make many wines and hasn't been around for very long. It farms a vineyard though that has been growing in the Vine Vale sub-region of the Barossa Valley for over 120 years. It’s the label of Dylan Grigg, who was a finalist in the Halliday Wine Companion’s Viticulturist of the Year category in 2023, and who also made the same publication’s Best New Producer list in 2024. Grigg has a PhD in viticulture and more specifically, in old vines. The old vines that he farms are grown as goblets, or bush vines, and are grenache. Occasionally in Australian wine we see the right person walk onto the right land at the right time. Dylan Grigg and this old bush vine Grenache vineyard are one such occasion. The 2023 Vinya Vella Old Vine Grenache is a wonderful wine. On The Winefront site I scored it at 95/100, calling it “light, bright and impressive”. The 2024 Vinya Vella Old Vine Grenache is as good or better. I wrote of it: “The Barossa is alive in this wine. This is a grenache that feels spring-heeled. It’s a pearl.” This vineyard, once dilapidated, is now prized.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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