The Bright Festival of Photography (BFOP) is held in a wine region – the Alpine Valleys – but it has no connection to wine. It should do. And then other wine regions should copy it.

The thing about elegance is that it allows you to stop and it allows you to breathe. In that sense elegance is an enabler. This thought came to me at a stand-up tasting in Tbilisi in Georgia recently, where I discovered the wines of Ori Marani.

This is a photo-essay of a brief journey into Georgian wine. As they say in Georgia, “we are the oldest wine culture in the world, and the newest”.

When Peter Dredge was seventeen years old he was resting by the side of an athletic track in Adelaide when he was hit in the head with a discus. This is the story of “Dr.Edge”.

Earlier this year I spent five days travelling from Los Angeles to San Fransisco to look at ongoing efforts to make the Californian wine industry more sustainable. Video feature.

It would be hard to find an individual who has had more influence over the fortunes of a nation’s wines than Georgian winemaker Iago Bitarishvili.

Even though the Scheid winery runs a whopping 4000 acres of vines, and crushes 30,000 tonne of grapes each year, it runs most of its vineyards organically, and has been carbon negative for the past eight years.

I visited Georgia last week – the home and indeed birthplace of wine – and came away raving about this brand of water.

We hardly needed more proof but a tasting of 40 years of Mount Langi Ghiran’s Langi Shiraz proved the eminence of this single site wine.

New owners, new winemaker, and all the signs are good at Stonier on the Mornington Peninsula.

There's a new winemaking breeze at Margaret River's Voyager Estate, and its name is Tim Shand.

The new team – and vineyard sources – behind TarraWarra Estate put this important Yarra Valley winery in an exciting position.

The release of the 2023 Bastard Hill wines, the first under the Giant Steps name, are a moment in Australian wine history that has been 40 years in the making.

One weekday afternoon I sat down with Pat Carmody, and he told me this story. This article won an award. It’s the story of the Craiglee winery.

I had a health scare recently. I was so concerned that I called a doctor, out of hours, to my house, late at night. The doctor who came noticed the wine bottles everywhere.

These are my personal Top 5 wine selections from The Penfolds Collection 2025.

The 2021 vintage of Penfolds Bin 95 Grange Shiraz will be released on August 7, 2025. I tasted it last month; these are my thoughts.

I sat down recently to a glass of one of the great Penfolds wines of the past: the Penfolds Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon 1996. This is how it’s travelling.

Penfolds Grange and La Chapelle, two of the world's most famous shiraz-based wines, have had a wine baby. It's called Grange La Chapelle 2021.

Penfolds Yattarna Chardonnay, aka The White Grange. Does it age? I sat down to a glass of the 2011 recently.

I could throw a blanket over many of them but here are my personal Top 5 of the 2024 Penfolds Collection.

The price may not be right for most of us. But Penfolds has released a pretty special wine with its new Bin 180 Cabernet Shiraz 2021 Commemorative release.

he 2020 Penfolds Grange Shiraz is “not a show pony, and is not a wall of sound, but it's Grange being Grange, authoritative, settled, the ants served crushed, the fruit deep”. This and more on the 2024 Penfolds Collection.

Majella in Coonawarra has followed its move into gin and Eau de Vie with a Pot Still Brandy – the first brandy produced in Coonawarra in 70 years.

Williunga 100 McLaren Vale Grenache 2023 is the first grenache to ever win the Prime Minister’s Trophy at Australia’s National Wine Show.

Succession is never easy but Jim Barry Wines in the Clare Valley is perfectly set to take on the future.

Wirra Wirra, an icon of the Australian wine industry, has bought star winery Hahndorf Hill.

Accolade Wines and the Australian, New Zealand and Spanish wine assets formerly owned by Pernod Ricard – will now be combined and known as Vinarchy.

I’ve become a bit addicted to this Aussie Rosso Vermouth.

Few push the boundaries of thought and action quite like Nic Peterkin of L.A.S Vino. The result, this time, is L.A.S. Vino Vermouth.

If ever a spirit was a revival waiting to happen – especially in Australia – it’s pastis. Kasia Sobiesiak reports.

I taste/drink a fair many gins and very few jump out of the glass like this Three Cuts Founder’s Release..

This fortified arinto is oddball and familiar at once; a good way to be. It tastes beautiful on ice.

Jeté has been making good quality sparkling wine for some years now but with this release of its Grand Vintage 2019, it’s gone up a gear or two, and really entered elite territory.

It’s the quiet acheiever of the Oakridge range. And it’s (now) very good.

Marri Wood park is a new producer of note and this sparkling chenin – not words you type every day – is very good.

Prosecco is go, for everybody, everywhere. This Italian example from Anna Spinato shows how delicate the style can be.

Kate Laurie’s Deviation Road Beltana Blanc de Blancs 2017 is a classic of Australian sparkling wine. This 2017 release is a cracking example thereof.

The 2025 edition of the Halliday Wine Companion is my second (and last) as its chief editor. Over two years, I had four main decisions to make. This is how I used them.

Fiona MacDonald was a long time, and much loved, publicist for Henschke. She died today after a long battle with MND.

There’s a real need in wine, both in Australia and elsewhere, for fresh, unique images to be taken, recorded, crafted and published. Here's a start.

I started working at Halliday Magazine in 2011. I’ve had a suite of different roles over the years, from editor of the magazine to editor of the book. The end has come.

This is the unofficial launch of CampbellMattinson.com as an online wine magazine. This website will be about the story of wine, and the stories of wine.

James Halliday has announced his retirement from all wine writing, so ending a magnificent and unrivalled career of wine communication.

A visit to Taminick Cellars, near Glenrowan n north-east Victoria, in photo form.

If James Halliday hadn’t called me personally, I wouldn’t have taken on the Halliday chief editor role.