RAISE A GLASS TO OUR PASSIONATE MAKERS

I’ve been visiting the Mornington Peninsula for more than 30 years now: driving down from Melbourne, searching for new cellar doors at the end of dirt roads, enjoying new beers in craft breweries, tasting new spirits as they drip from gleaming copper stills.

Over that time, I’ve watched as the region’s community of passionate drinks-makers has grown and matured. Even after the past five challenging years – through a pandemic and a string of difficult vintages to a cost-of-living crisis – it’s good to see that community continue to evolve. Not only are new, high-quality producers still opening their doors, but established businesses are also writing the next chapter of their story with new owners, new makers, and new products.

This year, for example, saw the first vintage release from the region’s most ambitious new vineyard, Elanto. Established in 2019 in the deep red volcanic soils of Balnarring overlooking Western Port, this 10ha chardonnay and pinot noir vineyard is notable for its high-density planting. Each vine is only 75cm apart from the next, and the vine rows are only 1.2m wide –three or four times more closely-planted (and therefore three or four times more work) than conventional vineyards.

“I wanted to see what would happen if we changed how we grew the grapes,” says Elanto winemaker Sandro Mosele as we walk through the narrow vine rows. “I wanted to find out what it’s like to work with truly great fruit.”

The result is wines with remarkable depth, intensity and complexity even from the first crop. What I taste in barrel at the winery from the second crop in 2024 is even better. This is destined to become known as one of the region’s – and the country’s – greatest vineyards.

At Stonier in nearby Merricks, I catch up with Julian Grounds, the new chief winemaker, and Aaron Drummond, new CEO and co-owner. Founded in 1978 by publisher and wine-lover Brian Stonier, this was the one of the first wineries on the Peninsula and has been through a series of corporate owners before three local families, including the Drummonds, bought the place in 2022.

“I grew up on the Peninsula,” says Aaron. “I knew this winery had produced some great wines over the years. I want to strengthen that position with the new team of people in the vineyard and winery.”

Julian agrees. “It’s been great to come into this place with its well-established vineyards and be able to look at them with fresh eyes.” Julian shows me the 2023 Stonier chardonnays and pinots, and while they’re very good – as you’d expect from one of the region’s oldest producers – the 2024s, tasted from barrel, are even better: more focused, more refined.

It’s a similar story at Eldridge vineyard up on Red Hill, where I taste the latest vintage chardonnay, pinot and gamay – the vineyard speciality – produced by the new winemaking team of Grace Jiranek and consultant Steve Flamsteed. Like Stonier, Eldridge has been under new ownership since 2022, when long-time winemaker David Lloyd sold to wine-loving couple Elli and Vicki Tutungi.

“Vicki and I are two years into this journey, and it’s been wonderful,” says Elli. “We've stepped into this world of incredible people and stories and history, where everything's linked to something else, where there are these networks, these spider webs of connections. It's magical.”

I discover more magic down at Tuerong at the region’s newest brewery, the impressive Devilbend Farm. Opened in 2023 by long-time Peninsula farmers the Shaw family, with experienced brewer Michael Stanzel working in the brewhouse, the venue – which also includes a restaurant – is in an old renovated apple cool store, and as many as possible of the beers’ ingredients are grown on the 33ha property. Not only the raw ingredients, but the yeast too. Some of the beers here are fermented wild, using the naturally occurring microbes in the farm’s environment.

“It’s a paddock-to-pint philosophy,” says farmer-turnedbrewery-owner Mike Shaw as he shows me his hop field and his cows munching grass in the nearby field. “And paddockto-plate: we feed the mash left over from the brewing to the cattle, and the beef ends up on the restaurant table.”

I like all the Devilbend beers I try at the brewery, but the stand-out for me is a German Pils-style lager, full of crisp character and hoppy fragrance. Premium lager is enjoying a resurgence of popularity at the moment, as other Peninsula brewers can testify. Another notable addition to the region’s line-up of beers this year was West Coast Pilsner, a collaboration between St Andrews Beach Brewery near the south-west coastline and Banks Brewing up in Seaford.

Premium vodka is also very on-trend at present. When I visit Chief’s Son Distillery in Somerville to taste Naomi and Stuart McIntosh’s fine single malt whiskies, they’re keen to show me their single malt vodka too. It’s a beautiful, clean but subtly flavoursome spirit, almost sweet and malty and vanilla-like on the finish – much more enjoyable than most vodkas I’ve tried.

The McIntoshes also pour me a sneak preview of a new whisky they’re about to launch. Australian single malts usually cost much more than $100 a bottle, but this new one will be less than $100. And it’s delicious, full of heather and honeyed nuts and good gentle oaky flavours. “Until now, Australian single malt has been seen as an ‘occasion’ whisky,” says Stuart. “We hope this will help people see Australian single malt as an everyday whisky.”

It will also help draw even more people to the region, looking for the next new things in wine, beer and spirits.

MAX ALLEN

Max Allen is an award-winning drinks writer, columnist, author and presenter and has contributed to Eat.Drink since 2019.