Gentle Folk Syrah 2025

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Gentle Folk Syrah 2025.

Gentle Folk Syrah 2025
$40, 14% alcohol, screwcap, Adelaide Hills.

There’s a carefree aspect to this wine – and intangible if ever there was one – and it makes for seductive drinking. It feels pure, natural and free-flowing, and it does so even as it delivers complex, savoury-edged flavour. This wine creates and exists within its own realm. It tastes of cherries, twiggy herbs, olives, saltbush, undergrowth, roasted nuts and crushed flowers, and amid all these nuances it still feels seamless and more-ish. You can guzzle (responsibly) this wine and, equally, you can ponder it.

Score: 95 points.

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
Previous

Reschke RSR Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
Next

Flowstone Queen of the Earth Cabernet Sauvignon 2021