Garagiste premium Mornington Peninsula wines truly express a sense of the place where they were grown. Focusing on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with the intent on highlighting the subtleties of the Peninsula's different sub-regions with small batches of very limited wines.

Hand sorting in the vineyard and winery, wild yeast fermentation, mainly foot trading, 22 days on skins, 100% whole bunches, matured in 50% new French puncheons on lees for 10 months, picked 7 Mar. An outstanding pinot; Barney Flanders has turned the very low yields across the Peninsula to his full advantage; the wine has a particular silky/slippery/savoury texture to the palate, adding significantly to its length, and paving the way for the plum and cherry fruits of the mid-palate. Francois Freres delivers a big bang for the buck in the density of the flavour of its oak, and one might have expected this to go OTT, but it hasn't even gone close. Drink by: 2028; Price: $75.00; Date Tasted: March 2016; Alcohol: 13.5%; Rating: 97 Points & Special Value Star; James Halliday Wine Companion

Only 60 dozen produced. i.e. rare as hen’s teeth. The 2013 was a pearler. The 2014? It’s even better. This is a magnificent pinot noir. I opened it late at night and immediately had to put it aside for the next day; it deserved better from me. This boasts the kind quality that makes you want to straighten your life out and be an improved person. It shines a light into you. It’s savoury, smoky, twiggy and powerful. It’s the earth risen up, the shirt of fruit torn open, the spice of life come to visit. It staggers with dryness, with herb, with smoke, a pathway of nutty oak branched between; but it slides with sour, ripe, succulent, satiny fruit. Tannin spins a perfect web. It’s a spell that binds. It’s my kind of wine. It may not be yours. I don’t care. It’s what great wine does: it takes concerns and flings them into the fast-moving wind. Tasted: Nov 2016; Alcohol: 13.5%; Price: $75; Closure: Screwcap; Drink: 2017-2024+; Rating: 97 Points; Campbell Mattinson; The Wine Front