Pooley

5 July

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

Anna Pooley has been a star of Australian winemaking since, effectively, she started working at Treasury Wine Estates just over twenty years ago. What she has achieved however at her family estate in the Coal River Valley of Tasmania since 2013 has added many extra layers of lustre. Anna Pooley, and her partner Justin Bubb, the Pooley family at large and the estate they farm are now firmly established as rolled gold gems of Australian wine. Never was an award more apt than when the Pooley winery was named the Halliday Wine Companion Winery of the Year in 2023. There’s both a force and an inherent quietness to the wines of Pooley. Across Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in particular, the wines are stoic, regal, upstanding and true. These wines age, and impress, and hold firm in equal measure. In Pooley, you can trust. This trust has built steadily since the establishment of the estate in 1985 but the 2023 and 2024 releases – born of Anna’s now extensive experience – are prime evidence of an Australian wine estate in full flight.

Pooley’s wine reputation is built around two outstanding vineyards: Cooinda Vale (just north of Campania, established in 1985), and Butcher’s Hill (at Richmond, established in 2003). Both these vineyards are run sustainably, using biological farming techniques.

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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