Vasse Felix Chief Winemaker Virginia Willcock was named Winemaker of the Year at the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion Awards, where her 2023 Heytesbury Chardonnay took both Chardonnay of the Year and White Wine of the Year.
Virginia says wine found her before she found it. Growing up, her parents had a hobby vineyard in the Swan Valley, and it was there, watching the happiness wine brought to family gatherings, that the idea of becoming a winemaker first took root. Vintages in New Zealand, Albania and Italy followed, before returning to Western Australia where in 2006 she joined Vasse Felix, the pioneering winery that helped put Margaret River on the map.
benchmark for Australian Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, and Virginia has steadily lifted an already formidable portfolio towards a more complex, handsoff style.
Her acceptance speech at the Halliday Awards captured her philosophy: “There’s no such thing as not working hard in this industry; you give your life to it because you believe in it. From the microbes and fungi that sustain the vineyard to the joy on someone’s face when they drink a glass of wine, it’s all connected. That’s why we do this.”
Virginia’s Chardonnay story has a strong New Zealand connection. A vintage at Cloudy Bay in Marlborough in 1996, working alongside the late James Healy, proved seminal in its early exploration of wild fermentation (“way ahead of the times… such a beautiful and creative mind”), which she credits as the greatest single influence on her winemaking.
Virginia comes to Hawke’s Bay eager to “interact with so many brilliant wine heads” and to explore what she calls “our most complex, delicious and sophisticated white grape variety”. Chardonnay is a “chameleon”, she says, “and there’s no better a wine to show the winemaker’s style”.
