Elanto Vineyard: Australia's Best New Winery

Halliday just named its Best New Winery for 2026, and it doesn't have a sign on the gate. There's no cellar door either, nothing to mark the entrance except a century-old chicory kiln at the turn-in. Follow the driveway over the crest at Balnarring on the Mornington Peninsula and Western Port Bay opens up in front of you, with the country's most intensely planted vineyard tucked into the slope below.

Elanto runs at 11,111 vines per hectare, more than four times standard Australian density, in rows barely a metre wide. It's a Burgundian style of farming almost nobody in this country attempts, because it's slow, brutal and expensive, every vine fighting its neighbour for water and nutrients.

Behind it is Sandro Mosele, the winemaker who built his name at Kooyong and Port Phillip Estate before deciding to build something entirely his own, planted in 2019 with backing from Elizabeth and Tony Todaro of Clevertronics’ fame (the name Elanto is their two first names stitched together).

The wines have only just started reaching bottle, and the wine world has noticed fast. Along with Best New Winery, both the 2024 Pinot Noir and 2024 Chardonnay, only the vineyard's second ever release, are already sitting at 96 to 97 points across three separate critics: Halliday, Huon Hooke and Erin Larkin from The Wine Advodate.

A project with this much intent and this much backing isn't staying under the radar for long.

And while we're on rare, we've also just taken delivery of the 2024 Bass Phillip wines, the Premium Chardonnay, Premium Pinot Noir and Estate Pinot Noir. As always with Bass Phillip, quantities are extremely limited and these won't sit around. Click below to view the wines and tasting notes.