Sierra Reed

20 May

I took over 350 photos of winemaker Sierra Reed – for the article here – and I’d be the first to admit that I’m not entirely happy with any of them. None of them make me nod and say, That’s Sierra. She’s a force to be reckoned with, a force of wine good, but so far the substance of that force has eluded my camera.

That said, I’m not a great fan of bright green colours in photographs, a problem given that vineyards are often involved. But the harmony of the colours in the image above do work surprisingly well. And Sierra’s pose comes across as wonderfully proud, and powerful, and true to who she is.

Winemaker Sierra Reed, of Reed Wines, stands in front of a wall of oak barrels and looks up at the sky. In black and white.

I do appreciate the negative space of the image of Sierra, in her winery, below. This is a) my kind of image and b) the kind of image that gets lost in a modern social media world. More’s the pity.

There’s a bit of a half-arsed video of Sierra here.

Winemaker Portraits

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

Sierra Reed

Iago

Simon Osicka