Adam Foster

Written By Campbell Mattinson

Every now and then the right winemaker enters the right region at the right time. Adam Foster of Syrahmi is that winemaker, in the Heathcote region. Jasper Hill put the region on the fine wine map; Paul Osicka and now Simon Osicka are the region’s bedrock; Adam Foster dares to dream and knows how to deliver.

The rocks on the Syrahmi property are quite seriously awesome. Foster seems at home in among them. The thing about environmental portraiture – which these images are – is that the images rarely stand out. They’re not instagramable. And yet for me they are the best of images. I can honestly say that of all the images I’ve taken of wine people, these images of Foster in his landscape are the ones that I’ve returned to the most.

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These images were taken with the Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, with a 50mm f3.5 prime. The detail is phenomenal.

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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