Shy Susan Blanc De Blancs 2019

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Shy Susan Blanc De Blancs 2019.

Shy Susan Blanc de Blancs 2019
$75, 12.5% alcohol, crown seal, Tasmania.

Glenn James is a shockingly good winemaker with truly alarming depth and range to his winemaking knowledge. Apart from many other winemaking adventures, he spent many years making sparkling wine (among other things) with Tasmania grapes. Joanna Marsh spent years making sparkling wine (among other things) at Seppelt. Marsh too is encyclopedic in her wine knowledge, and inspiring in her relentless quest to know more. Given this, it’s no surprise that Glenn James and Joanna Marsh have crafted here a gorgeous sparkling wine, made with Tasmanian grapes.

The best trick with sparkling wine – apart from adding some joy to your life – is to deliver flavour in an elegant way. That’s exactly what this wine does, and then adds a bit of flair. It tastes of apples and grapefruit, citrus and sweet pastries, all of which would be enough in itself – except that this wine then adds a genuine kick (of extra flavour) through the finish, which makes you stop and take special notice. To put it midly, this sparkling wine is excellent and then some.

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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