First Ridge Fiano 2025
$30, 12.5%, screwcap, Mudgee.
This is an attractive wine full stop but there’s a whisper of something extra here. It tastes off nectarine, apple, nashi pear and something a bit woodsy and herbal, the latter giving the wine a tonic-like lift. This wine comes across as both delicate and well-flavoured at once; it’s lovely from the outset, but it improves as it opens up and breathes. 93 points.
Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He founded The Winefront, is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion (and former editor of Halliday magazine), and is the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is 100% independent, and tastes between 5,000 and 10,000 wines each year, blind and in comparative brackets as often as is practicable.
Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.
