Californian Wine Reviews

Written By Campbell Mattinson

As I travelled the lands of California’s central coast I tasted and looked and listened and smelled and then I tasted again. As I did this and as the bus rolled past workers and farms and forests and rivers and ravines it became clear to me that this is wine country with sorrow and secrets and largesse and learning. I collected a tab of reviews of Californian Wines as I went. This is it. If it matters to you then I pass on that all the wines tasted or mentioned here are from certified sustainable wineries.

Mattinson in California: Wine Reviews.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of both The Winefront site (the home of Australia’s best wine reviews) and of Mattinson Photography.

Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer since 1987. 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 is a storyteller. He is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic, and in all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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