Let this sink in: Owen Latta is just over 40, and the 2026 season marks his 28th vintage as a winemaker. Owen was born not long after his parents planted the Eastern Peake vineyard in Coghills Creek, some 25 minutes outside Ballarat in Victoria's central-west. He grew up in and around the winery, but at 15 was thrown straight in the deep when he returned from school to find his father had suffered a concussion and it was up to him to assume winemaking duties in his place.
Nearly three decades later, he’s cemented himself as a luminary, overseeing both the work at Eastern Peake and the more experimental Latta Vino, the negociant label he started in 2013. In full flight, that wingspan is really something to behold, and his ability to sway between classic and new-wave styles while retaining utmost respect for regionality and fruit quality is pretty much unmatched.
While the Latta Vino wines reflect Owen’s more fun, free-wheeling side, there’s no mistaking their seriousness or consistent level of refinement. Now a fixture, the 2024 Moonambel Quartz Bianco is proof: a direct-pressed sauv blanc from the Pyrenees that spends 11 months lees and puts the ‘S’ in structural, with all the energy and acid of fresh-cut grapefruit and an unrelenting line of briny minerality and herby zing.
The 2025 Tonal Diffusion throws a bit of a curveball – excess grenache that was pressed to a large barrel and lost its colour over winter. Technically red, but a white? Unripened strawberries and watermelon rind, skippy and bright, rosé sans blush vibes. Oh yes. That lack of colour is more than made up for with the 2025 Dexterous Contact Gris, pinot gris as a proper orange wine with all the crunch and dryness of red apples and their skins.
For pinot noir fans out there, things at Eastern Peake are looking mighty fine, with all three single-vineyard sites showing poise, prettiness and power in equal measure. The youngest of those, the Two Mile Hill vineyard, was planted in 2017, and the 2025 Two Mile Hill Pinot Noir is unsurprisingly high-toned as a result, all jubey forest fruits, sage-y perfume and talc-like texture. The 2025 Walsh Block Pinot Noir, from a dear friend’s vineyard just behind the family plot, drinks leaner and tighter, marrying tangy red-berry fruit with cedar, sweet spice and the gentle tug of fine-grained tannins.
After 15 years outside the Latta family hands, the historic Griffins Road vineyard is now firmly back under their stewardship, with biodynamic certification on track for next year. And, as per usual, the 2025 Griffins Road Pinot Noir offers a look at the variety’s more savoury side: pomegranate and rhubarb, wet tobacco, charcuterie and leafy herbs. These really are old school and good school at their finest, with an unflinching eye to the present and future.
