Deviation Road Beltana Blanc de Blancs 2019

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Deviation Road Beltana Blanc de Blancs 2019.

Deviation Road Beltana Blanc de Blancs 2019
AU$110, 12.5% alcohol, DIAM cork, Adelaide Hills.

Disgorged in June 2026. 4 grams/litre dosage. 100% chardonnay. Seven years on lees. Made by Kate Laurie.

Yes this is a (sparkling) wine of length, flavour and complexity but it’s also quite exquisitely elegant. It throws oyster shells into white peach, baked bread into preserved citrus, and flings chalk over baked red apples and grapefruit. It’s seven years old now, it’s fresher than most daisies, and it will continue to improve beautifully. There are some who argue that Kate Laurie, her Piccadilly Valley site and her Beltana Blanc de Blancs are the best combination in Australian wine. She has noteworthy competition of course but I drank this wine and found myself nodding in the direction of such arguments. There’s a near-squeaky textural element to the wine which, in the context of myriad flavour nuances and eventual length, is the absolute bomb. In short, this is a fantastic release.

96 points – Campbell Mattinson.

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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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