Adrian Sparks

Written By Campbell Mattinson

Mount Pleasant, I wrote in my Australia’s Best Wineries guide, is “the birthplace of fine Australian wine, the name on the label of many of the best Australian wines of all time. Mount Pleasant is a legend of both the past and of now.”

I believed that then and I believe that now.

I always thought that this photographic session with Adrian Sparks was a good one. I thought this because the light, particularly in the cellar door, was about as exquisite as it gets. And yet every time I look at these images I’m disappointed with them. I don’t know why. Adrian Sparks is a champion winemaker, Mount Pleasant is a champion estate, the light was good, so too the setting. I also like the moment in time of these images: the Mount Pleasant cellar door has just been renovated (beautifully), but not yet been re-opened; the covers were still on the artworks on the wall.

In any case, these are the images and, thanks to Adrian, the Mount Pleasant wines are as magnificent as ever.

 
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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