2025 Port Phillip Balnarring Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula

Offers a different Pinot perspective to its higher elevated Red Hill sibling. The Balnarring vineyard is just 50-60m above sea level and the fruit here was fermented in large format wooden foudre as well as stainless steel. Solid crimson hues. Builds on a deep, savoury-influenced style where dark fruits mix with violet florals, dried herbs and rosemary, baking spices and an added dimension of game meat savouriness. Excellent depth of flavour and interest explored over a line of lacy tannins. Superb balance, light and shade, and still has so much to offer over more time in bottle. Drink to 2035.

95 points Jeni Port for Wine Pilot, June 2026

Planted in 1997, the original Pinot Noir vines were added to, by the inclusion of a higher density planting in later years. Fermentation was in a mix of stainless steel vats and larger format wooden foudre. The team incorporated 15% of whole bunches in the fermentation, which took eighteen days. The wine was pressed into French oak barriques, 15% new, for maturation over the next eleven months. A pale but vibrant crimson, with hints of the Blue Mountains haze. The nose offers notes of strawberries and cherries, chocolate, bay leaves, dried herbs and a touch of vanilla. Good focus, there is quite a creamy texture here, and we do see some early complexity. So much to love here. Juicy acidity with a lingering finish, a touch of sour cherry is evident as the wine comes to a conclusion. It finishes with silky tannins and should provide pleasure for the next eight to ten years at least. Drink to 2036.

95 points Ken Gargett for Wine Pilot, June 2026

This is a safe bet. It presents an attractive mix of varietal fruit flavour, teamed with undergrowth and smoky oak. Complexity is at a good level here and everything is in harmony. This is a dry, confident wine that maintains good momentum throughout, not to mention appeal.

93 points Campbell Mattinson for The Wine Front, May 2026

Strawberries and pencils. Light sketch, red-juice etch, pencils and petals and delicate yet dense. Tannins that stretch and yawn like naked morning and then curl up, limber, lithe, but not wanting to be anything other than sensuously soporific.

17/20 points Tamlyn Currin for Jancis Robinson, May 2026

The fruit for this wine was grown in the Balnarring vineyard, a 11.5-hectare site planted in 1997 on a gentle north-facing slope of low vigour sandy clay-loam at elevations between 50 and 60 metres.

From the near-perfect 2025 Mornington season, the handpicked fruit was fermented with indigenous yeasts over eighteen days in a combination of stainless steel and large oak foudre, and included 15% as whole bunches. The wine was then pressed, racked and matured for eleven months in French oak barriques of which 15% were new, and bottled without fining after a light, single filtration.

About this producer

Port Phillip Estate is the Red Hill sibling of Kooyong in Tuerong, with both Mornington Peninsula estates under the ownership of the Gjergja Family. Port Phillip Estate draws fruit from two sites, with all wines made and bottled in-house at Kooyong by a team led by winemaker Tim Perrin. Winemaking practices detail-orientated but emphasise low-intervention through native ambient yeasts and gravity-led flow of wine. The wines are unfined, and mostly unfiltered.