Melanie Chester

Written By Campbell Mattinson

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.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of both The Winefront site (the home of Australia’s best wine reviews) and of Mattinson Photography.

Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer since 1987. 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 is a storyteller. He is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic, and in all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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