Agricola Vintners

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Agricola Vintners in the Barossa Valley is a Mattinson 10-Star winery.

Agricola Vintners is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.
Only the best of Australia’s best wineries are ranked as a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.

When I sat down to the 2024 release of Agricola Vintners K Sands Shiraz, these were the first words to spill out: “Shake the hand of the future because here it is. This Barossa Valley shiraz is just, simply, wildly good.” I wrote these words for The Winefront site, where I concluded with the words: “The Barossa and its old vines are treasures of the world. Drink this wine and know.” These comments followed the comments made of Agricola Vintners 2023 releases, which were a landmark. The Barossa Valley is a benchmark region for shiraz and grenache. There’s too much to the Barossa for it to ever be redefined. But the excitement being generated by Agricola Vintners and a limited few others, with old vine vineyards in tow, is a lava-flow revolution for the region. This is not a revolution of rules or counter-rules; it’s a revolution of quality in its sheerest form. These wines are different and the same. They are the ultimate honour of their land and of its peoples. These wines are not the Barossa as the outstretched frontier; they are the Barossa brought home.

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Agricola Vintners Ebenezer 2024 review here.

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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