Four Winds Vineyard: 2024 Jimmy Watson Trophy winner up for sale

Written By Campbell Mattinson
A tractor rolls through the Four Winds vineyard in the Canberra wine region.

The winner of the 2024 Jimmy Watson Trophy – Four Winds Vineyard, in the Canberra wine region – was put up for sale today.

When the sale goes through, it will be the end of an era for owners John and Sarah Collingwood, who took over the vineyard from Sarah’s parents Graeme and Suzanne Lunney 15 years ago. Four Winds Vineyard is 30 minutes from downtown Canberra. It was only last November that the 2023 Four Winds Shiraz was announced as the winner of the 2024 Jimmy Watson Trophy winner.

Ms Collingwood said that while it was sad to be leaving a place dear to three generations of her family, she and her husband and their two young children felt it was the right time to hand over the baton.

“We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve built, but it’s time for new adventures,” Ms Collingwood says. “Winning an award as prestigious as the Jimmy Watson feels like the perfect high note to step away on.”

The sale of the Four Winds Vineyard includes the Collingwoods’ four-bedroom home, with tennis court and woodfired pizza oven in the garden, 12-hectare vineyard, and business infrastructure.

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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