McHenry – 10 Year Old French Oak

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of McHenry – 10 Year Old French Oak.

McHenry – 10 Year Old French Oak
Port Arthur, Tasmania.
ABV: 46% (the award-winning 10 Year Old French Oak – single ex-tawny French oak cask, 500ml, $145, now sold out). The still-available Signature French Oak is also 46% (500ml, ~$109). Cask-strength McHenry releases run higher (to ~55–61%).

Gold for Best Australian Single Malt at the 2026 World Whiskies Awards – from the most improbable address in Australian whisky. McHenry is the country's southernmost distillery, a family-run operation on a windswept 100-acre farm near Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula, distilling since 2011 with water drawn from its own springs in a cool, ocean-tempered climate its makers liken to Scotland's. Everything is distilled, matured and bottled by hand on site. The award went to a single-cask 10 Year Old French Oak – a decade in a single ex-tawny French oak barrel, drawn off at 61% and cut to 46% – which sold out fast at $145. The same house style carries on in the more attainable Signature French Oak, hand-bottled just the same.

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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