Black, white & wine all over

by Amanda Barnes March 18, 2019

written by Amanda Barnes | November 20th, 2021,

Wine glass photography, wine photographer Matt Wilson

Award-winning British photographer, Matt Wilson has been based in Chile since 2003 and is renowned for his adventurous takes at life surrounding wine.

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“I’ll never shoot anyone with their nose in a wine glass,” he says, defiantly avoiding the cliches of wine photography. If you take a flick through his Instagram account, you’ll likely see more wine being thrown out of a glass than being poured into a glass!

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Some of his recent black and white portraits of personalities in Chilean wine (and somewhat further afield) are currently on tour in an exhibition around South America’s wineries and wine regions. Here we take a look at some of the highlights, and Matt explains a bit about the person or story behind the photograph.

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Michel Rolland

“I have known Michel for many years and have photographed him many times. Here I wanted a monochrome straight close portrait. Michel is always easy to photograph and always seems in a good and relaxed mood. This may be because I am not a winemaker, so he can also relax with me. This was shot at Clos Apalta winery.”

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Aurelio Montes

“This is Aurelio Montes. Iconic Chilean winemaker and businessman. I have known Aurelio since moving to Chile 15 years ago. A great friend and a pretty awesome winemaker. Here I photographed him in my studio for an exhibition last year, but the photograph will also go up in my new exhibition in Mendoza later this year.”

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James Suckling

“Here I photographed James Suckling. I film some of the videos for James’ website and know him quite well. Here he is blind tasting wines from Chile. I made this photograph at Montes winery in Apalta, in Colchagua. He has covered the bottles with paper bags. I liked the reflection in this image, and also the fact that James has his eyes closed in concentration.”

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Romina Pérez-Kallens

“Here I have photographed my assistant Romina Pérez-Kallens, she is holding a Lalique 100 point glass and a generic magnum of wine. We used a mirror in my studio to create the reflection.”

“Again this is of the same James Suckling designed 100 point Lalique glasses. These have recently been introduced to the Chilean and Argentinian market. I wanted to make as minimal an image as possible, using glasses and wine, but no labels. The focus is on the glass and bottle with Romina in very soft focus and only showing the tilt of the wine parallel to the open mouth.”

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Marco Puyo

“I photographed Marco in my studio using a mirror as a reflection. We wanted to make the wine without a label to make the image more minimalist. Marco wanted the photo to be quite serious. I have known Marco for around 13 years. When I first met him he was at Los Vascos, then at Viña San Pedro and now he has his own project in Perilillo in Colchagua. A beautiful vineyard and some great wines.”

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Grant Phelps

“I have been photographing winemaker Grant Phelps for about 14 years. I saw a photograph of Salvador Dali taken from above with a fisheye lens. I decided to try it with Grant doing a tasting at his hotel WineBox Valparaiso.”

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Jose (Pepe) Gallante

“I had to photograph Jose for Wine Enthusiast magazine. The afternoon light was great outside the winery’s famous barrel room (Salentein), where some gorgeous popular trees grow. We decided to use the sunlight through the trees as a backdrop. We used a reflector on Jose and after a few minutes, we got this wonderful cheeky smile.”

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You can see more of Matt’s photography on his website.

photography Matt Wilson

Amanda Barnes

Amanda Barnes is a British journalist who has been living in the Southern Hemisphere since 2009, has tried over 500 Malbecs, eaten over 600 Chilean oysters and still has a functioning liver and kidneys (as far as she knows).