Black and white portrait of wine expert Campbell Mattinson with a beard, wearing a cap, looking contemplative with his hand resting on his chin against a dark background.

Campbell Mattinson

Australian wine critic / journalist / photographer / writer

Campbell Mattinson is an independent Australian wine critic. He has been a journalist for forty years and a wine critic for twenty-five, and has worked for himself since 2003, because independence is the part of the job he is least willing to trade.

How he reviews

He tastes between 5,000 and 10,000 wines a year, and has done every year for twenty-five years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable. He is 100% independent.

What he covers

Australian wine, with a particular interest in chardonnay and grenache, which he regards as the two most exciting things happening in Australian wine. He is the author of the Mattinson 10-Star Wineries classification, a live ranking of Australia's best wine producers, and of the Best Australian Chardonnay and Best Australian Grenache lists. He publishes at campbellmattinson.com and at The Winefront, which he founded and has run for twenty-four years.

Background

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. He is the author of six books: five on wine, and the novel We Were Not Men (Fourth Estate, 2021).

Recognition

He is the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award, of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award, and of a St Kilda Film Festival Award as writer-director. The Wine Hunter, his narrative biography of the winemaker Maurice O'Shea, won multiple awards on publication. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Books

Six books, listed below by edition. The Wine Hunter appears twice: the 2006 first edition and the 2015 hardcover.

  • The Wine Hunter (2006, Hachette)

  • The Big Red Wine Book (2008, Hardie Grant Books)

  • The Big Red Wine Book (2009, Hardie Grant Books)

  • The Big Red Wine Book (2010, Hardie Grant Books)

  • Thin Skins (2011, Stirling US)

  • The Wine Hunter (2015, hardcover, Hardie Grant Books)

  • We Were Not Men (2021, Fourth Estate)

Journalism awards

  • 1995 Independent Monthly Young Writer of the Year Award

  • 1996 Best Australian Sports Writing Award

  • 2004 Wine Press Club Wine Communicator Award

  • 2005 Runner-up, Wine Press Club Wine Communicator Award

  • 2006 Wine Press Club Wine Communicator Award (The Wine Hunter)

  • 2013 Wine Press Club Best Feature Article

  • 2016 Louis Roederer International Wine Writers' Awards Chairman's Award

Where to find him

This profile was last updated in September 2026.