Chalmers The Spirit

10 June

Chalmers The Spirit
$140 per 500ml, 47% alcohol, screwcap, Heathcote Victoria.

In the words of Chalmers themselves, this is a “white spirit that defies categorisation, a love child of Grappa, Schnapps and Eau de Vie, guided through the process by our assistant winemaker at the time, experienced distiller Megan Hume. The end result is an unadulterated pure expression of (the) Moscato Giallo (grape).”
It’s pretty full on. It smells and tastes of chamomile, which sounds soft and gentle but this is anything but. This is a force of alcohol, scent and flavour, the alcohol kicking like a mule, the mid palate of barley and hay and scorched flowers and spice doing its best in the face of alcohol-fuelled fire. It’s both boundary-pushing and not for the feint-hearted.

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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