Melanie Chester

15 Apr

Giant Steps winemaker Mel Chester sitting at a table full of wine glasses, looking straight at the camera.

Giant Steps has been an outstanding Australian wine producer for a long time, but under winemaker Melanie Chester it has come to breathe rare air. The wines each year are structural, immaculate and routinely superb. Both Chester and Giant Steps are, both individually and together, a force in Australian wine.

Most years I sit down and taste the latest season’s wines with Chester. She’s as formidable as she is impressive. This image was taken after we’d tasted through the 2024 Giant Steps single vineyard releases. Morning sun, filtered through early winter branches.

Winemaker Portraits

Campbell Mattinson

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He founded The Winefront, is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion (and former editor of Halliday magazine), and is the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is 100% independent, and tastes between 5,000 and 10,000 wines each year, blind and in comparative brackets as often as is practicable.

More about Campbell Mattinson

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com

Melanie Chester

Tim Shand

Iago Bitarishvili