On the road with Sophie Matterson
When I got the call from Australian Geographic to track down Sophie Matterson and...
A One Tree Hill residence back in the 1800’s called the Homestead – “Tenafeate”, this is an adaptation of a Gaelic name meaning ‘The Whistling House’. The Tenafeate Homestead was situated near a running creek which therefore gave rise to the name “Tenafeate Creek”.
There’s nothing more powerful than a carefully presented personal, historical narrative. The story of owner Larry Costa moved me greatly overcoming degenerative vision to move from hairdressing to wine making, among the backdrop of his father Vincenzo moving from Italy and starting from scratch in an empty field. And now Michael takes on this mantle with outstanding results with many of the staple wines created rated at mid to high nineties.
Similar to photography and filmmaking, Winemaking is a very creative and dangerous occupation. Without risk there is no reward. Spending a week with the family on site I was shown the decisions and trials that go into creating different blends and textures within the various wines.
A lot of respect was garnered from this interaction and so I decided to put all of this into my work. Respect is a big part of what I do and it’s always cohesive to my process to work alongside others pushing the boundaries of their chosen field.
