Shy Susan Gewurztraminer 2024

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Shy Susan Gewurztraminer 2024.

Shy Susan Gewurztraminer 2024
$40, 13% alcohol, screwcap, Alpine Valleys.

This is an exceptional Gewurztraminer. Indeed it’s an exceptional white wine full stop. It was grown on the oldest vineyard in the Alpine Valleys region – a vineyard that was in desperate need of restoration when winemakers Jo Marsh and Glenn James took it over, and which now owes its life to their care – and while there’s precious little of this wine to go around (the vineyard only grew enough grapes to produce 22 dozen bottles in 2024), the quality here is right up there.

This wine is textural, bright with rosewater and lychee, slipped with smoky comlexities and awash with cooked apple, citrus and tonic flavours. It’s both the full box and dice and a wine of exquisite control. There’s a juiciness to this and yet it’s textural and slatey. This is a wonderful white wine in anyone’s language. It’s pure, engaging, charismatic and more. This wine is both great in the glass and a great example of vineyard custodianship. 95 points.

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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