Local winery earns best value title

MULLINE Vintners has been named Australia’s best value winery in the coveted 2025 Halliday Wine Companion Awards.

Winery owners, Ben Mullen and his partner Ben Hine, said they were thrilled to receive the award, dubbed by the Halliday Wine Companion as “the most important in the book”, and celebrated the recognition for expanding the idea of what great value is for consumers.

“We are delighted that Mulline Vintners is being recognised with this prestigious award after releasing just five vintages since our establishment in 2019,” Hine said.

The Sutherlands Creek winery produces both a $30 range of regional wines and a $60 range of single vineyard wines, including Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Fumé Blanc among other varieties, which were highly praised by Halliday.

“Such excellence never springs out of nowhere, and that’s certainly the case with Mulline,” Halliday stated.

“Clearly there are some fantastic vineyard resources at play here but the person who makes the wine – Ben Mullen – could not come more highly credentialed.”

Mullen said the choice to produce wines in Geelong and showcase its sub-regions was a deliberate one.

“Geelong was perhaps a wildcard choice for a winemaker to pour all of their time, money and effort into,” Mullen said.

“There are other, more obvious, choices like Yarra Valley, the Barossa, and so on.

“This recognition is a huge validation that all of the sacrifices we have made have been worth the effort of maintaining discipline and focus on producing the best possible wines we can, while increasing the attention on the Geelong region across Australia and internationally.”

More than 7,500 wines from more than 1,100 wineries were sampled by the Halliday tasting team, led for the second year by chief editor Campbell Mattinson, to determine this year’s winners.

Halliday also applauded Mulline’s cool climate Syrah.

“Two years running it has come ridiculously close to winning our Shiraz of the Year award (it’s come second twice and effectively lost both years on a countback), which is an incredible feat in itself, but is all the more remarkable when you factor in that Mulline is a small producer in the Geelong region and that it’s only been in operation since 2019.”

For more information, head to mulline.com