Mulline Vintners, founded in 2019 by winemaker Ben Mullen and Ben Hine, is a Geelong producer named Halliday Wine Companion Best Value Winery of the Year and celebrated for a Burgundian approach to the region's single-vineyard whites. This Chardonnay comes from the warmer, drier Strathmore vineyard at Sutherlands Creek in the Moorabool Valley sub-region of Geelong, a closely spaced planting reported at around 10,000 vines per hectare. The site was planted in 1998 to the P58 clone and sits on grey and brown loams over fragmented granite, giving the wine its crushed-rock minerality and taut structure. The cool but even 2024 season produced concentrated, well-balanced fruit with the drive and detail for which the vineyard is now known.

Fruit was handpicked from two blocks on the same day, cooled overnight and whole-bunch pressed straight to oak with full solids for a reductive, textural build. Around 30 percent of the wine went through malolactic fermentation, with the remainder sulphured in place to retain acidity and tension. Some 25 percent was matured in new French and Austrian oak, with the balance in seasoned French barriques, and the wine rested in oak for around eight months before bottling. The result is a complex, saline Chardonnay showing white nectarine, crushed rock, flint, grilled peach and gentle vanillin, with real drive and length through a beautifully balanced finish.