James Halliday Hall of Fame: Australian Wine Industry

2025 James Halliday Hall of Fame: Australian Wine Industry

This award goes to an individual of the Australian wine industry deemed to be of the highest regard and significance. This award is the highest honour of any bestowed by Halliday Wine Companion.

Sue Hodder, Wynns Coonawarra Estate – Coonawarra, South Australia

The day Sue Hodder was appointed as a winemaker at Wynns Coonawarra Estate was a great day for Australian wine. Hodder has been a gift – arguably the single greatest gift – to Australian wine lovers ever since. She’s made wine at this historic Coonawarra winery since 1992, and as head winemaker since ’98. She inherited a winery of renown, no doubt, but she also inherited a winery that wasn’t the biggest fish in its own company pond.

Somehow, whether against the odds or not, she has made sure that the wines produced from this winery have remained at the very top of the Australian quality tree. The wines she oversees have evolved but never – not once – wavered.

Sue Hodder is the second inductee into the James Halliday Hall of Fame: Australian Wine Industry.

Sue Hodder is as renowned for her modesty as she is for her immense skill and feel for wine. The job she inhabits, as head winemaker at Wynns Coonawarra Estate, may or may not be the most prestigious wine job in Australia, but it is arguably the most important. 

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon is the wine Australian wine enthusiasts cut their teeth on, learn from, live with, and age with. It’s the wine that stays with us, on our way. It’s a wine that could have become a relic, but never has. Sue and her team have fought for this wine, and for all of us who drink it, and won. Indeed, every year she finds and fights for a range of beautiful parcels of fruit, which become beautiful wines, which become part of the wonder of our wine lives. 

Sue Hodder has been making wine at Wynns for over 30 years now. We hope that she continues to make wine there for as long as she desires. But already, right now, she has earned the respect, and accumulated the credits, to make her a legend of Australian wine. We induct her as our second entrant into the James Halliday Hall of Fame. – Campbell Mattinson

Sue joined the winemaking team at Wynns Coonawarra Estate in 1993.

Sue Hodder remembers when the first Wynns John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon was released. “It was the 1980s, I was at Roseworthy [Agricultural College]... We all got to taste it and study it. It was a real benchmark wine.” 

Sue joined Wynns Coonawarra Estate in 1993. "I knew a couple of people who were already working here, which was great. I also knew a few of the Coonawarra winemaking locals, so I was welcomed into the community immediately and I've never felt that I wanted to leave."

After more than three decades at Wynns, there's still so much Sue would like to achieve. "There is no endpoint. We just have to make sure we can do the absolute best with the health and quality of the vineyards for the future as we address climate change." And after that legendary 60-year vertical in 2017, Sue says she'd love to see a 100-year vertical of the famed Wynns Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon.

Sue Hodder joins Prue Henschke (2024) in James Halliday Hall of Fame: Australian Wine Industry.

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This is an edited extract from the 2025 Halliday Wine Companion, with reviews by James Halliday, Campbell Mattinson, Dave Brookes, Jane Faulkner, Jeni Port, Marcus Ellis, Mike Bennie, Philip Rich, Shanteh Wale and Toni Paterson MW. Cover art by Vera Babida.

Image credit: Wynns Coonawarra Estate.