Elanto Chardonnay 2023

Elanto is not open to the public, and doesn t plan to have a cellar door, though in time it will take appointments. I travelled to see the vineyard more or less for one reason: because the winemaker behind it is Sandro Mosele, the former highly-awarded winemaker at Kooyong and Port Phillip Estate. Sandro is generally afforded guru status. I parked out the front of the vineyard, not knowing that the road to the winery is, like Sandro Mosele s career in wine, long and winding. As I walked up this road the vineyard appeared over the rise of land to my right, and as it did the story stopped being about Sandro, and became almost entirely about the vineyard.

I say almost because Sandro Mosele has never stopped working in and with wine, but he s disappeared from public view for the better part of a decade. Elanto is Sandro Mosele s triumphant return. I m putting words in his mouth when I say that he has a point to prove but, whether he feels that way or not, that s how it comes across. This isn t just any old return to the tools. This is zero to 100, if not zero to 1000. This land, once a chicory farm but more recently used to graze animals, has now reached its ultimate destination: as one of the best vineyards in Australia.

Such a bold claim might sound ridiculous. I ve walked the place and I ve tasted from it. The whole site is planted to Pinot Noir and chardonnay and that s it. The first wine I tasted – chardonnay, from barrel – was so intense with pure chardonnay flavour that it felt redefining. The pinot noirs from barrel were all manner of things but at all times, too, were deep, pure and prolonged. Every time the bung of a barrel was popped it felt like a new era had been opened. You would never in a million years guess that these wines have been grown on relatively young vines. In fact, it's the last thing you would think.

When Sandro Mosele was ten years old, he'd already learned how to finish concrete. His dad was a concreter. Sandro Mosele has spent his whole career finishing things, meticulously, to his own exacting standards. He says, as we look out across this remarkable vineyard, I can't stand it when I look at a vineyard and I notice that there's a vine missing in a row. Nothing goes unnoticed. Everything is attended." - Campbell Mattinson

This wine is a blend of the 3 Chardonnay vineyards (lieu-dits); Verge, Buckshot and Seawinds.

Each vineyard was picked and vinified separately. The fruit was hand sorted and then whole bunch pressed with the juice run direct to a mix of new and older French oak barriques. A natural fermentation completed over the coming months. In total the wine spent 10 months in barrel before being transferred to large concrete vats for a further 2 months maturation before bottling. Diam 30 closure.

"Fantastic intensity of flavour matched to fantastic length. This is a chardonnay for lovers of chardonnay. There’s cedarwood oak in play, and a kind of nutty-creaminess too, but it’s the blaze of pear, white peach, grapefruit and steel that really woos. Citrussy acidity teams with the pear characters to give the wine an air of juicy refreshment, but everything is in the context of flavour, bold and delicious. This is an exceptional first release, and a truly beautiful wine." 95 Points - Cambpell Mattinson, The Wine Front