Werribee Market Gardens

A picture of a Werribee market garden as a wall print. The image itself is below.

There was a time in my life when I drove past this farm and others like it every Monday night, or at least every time the Werribee/Wyndham City Council met. I reported on that council in the late 1980s; meetings started at 7 or 7.30pm, and between about 5.30pm and the start of the meetings I’d just go for a drive around the area known as the Werribee Market Gardens in Werribee South. It’s a beautiful area, flat, brown, working, real, worth treasuring. As the crow flies this area is close to the Melbourne CBD but when you’re there it feels a world away. I was in the area one hot morning at the start of 2025, just driving around liked I used to all those evenings ago, and stopped to capture this, partly because I like ordered rows, partly because of the caravan, and partly because there will be a time not too far hence when these market gardens are but a memory. I file these pictures in the Last Chance To See folder, not because plans are imminent for this particular farm but because the vibe of this area is that development is on the march. The richness of the area though remains vivid.

Image copyright Campbell Mattinson.

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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