Elanto Pinot Noir 2024

Pinot Noir off five blocks — Vertex, Ironstone, Chicory, Kilnside and Basalt — across 6.7 organically farmed hectares planted at over 11,000 vines per hectare, four times the Mornington norm, with yields held to 300-500 grams a vine. Fruit is chilled and destemmed with a small whole-bunch portion, wild-fermented in concrete with 25-30 days on skins, then aged eleven months in new and older French barriques. Dark cherry, strawberry, violet and anise lead into cedar, rhubarb and forest floor over velvet-smooth tannins.

The site at Balnarring is young volcanic ground. Porous silt sits over red clay and basalt stone, rich in iron and magnesium. Iron-crusted sandstone pebbles the locals call buckshot run right through it. A gentle south-east tilt faces Western Port Bay two kilometres off, and the sea breeze on warm afternoons keeps acidity in the fruit.

The 2024 spent less time on skins than the 2023. The dense planting gives the berries plenty of skin tannin, so the winery can back off. A quarter of the barrels were new. Where 2023 was structural and condensed, 2024 is floral, perfumed and fresh.

Sandro Mosele and Tony Todaro met at a French wine tasting in Melbourne in 2017. The first commercial crop came in 2023. The logo is the 1910 chicory kiln on the property. Drink it now or hold it to 2033.