Kooyong and Port Phillip Estate
Mornington Peninsula , Victoria
Winery Overview
Kooyong and Port Phillip Estate is a specialist Pinot Noir and Chardonnay producer located on the Mornington Peninsula, one of Australia’s foremost cool climate maritime wine growing regions.
They endeavour to grow the highest quality fruit that expresses the terroir of each vineyard. Their viticultural philosophy is to develop and maintain a soil and vineyard biota that produces a balanced vine living sustainably in its environment.
Informed by the principles of agroecology and permaculture, they employ a biological farming system that places focus on the improvement of soil biology through the use of compost teas, estate-produced compost, mulch, and other natural soil conditioners. They strive to improve and build soil health and through the use of cover crops, tillage and aeration.
Kooyong and Port Phillip Estate's biological farming system is driven by the belief that the health of their vineyard soils and thus vines, underpin wine quality. Vineyards are always hand-pruned, shoot thinned, shoot positioned and crop thinned. All fruit is handpicked.
The winemaking philosophy is to best preserve the inherent characteristics present in the fruit, making site-expressive wines of detail and structure. They believe all our wines should convey a sense of the place and the season in which they were grown.
Their practises in the winery are low-intervention. Fermentation of all our wines occurs spontaneously with native ambient yeasts. This is also the case for malolactic fermentation.
They use wholly French oak for all barrel matured wines, red and white. All red wines are unfined and unfiltered. White wines are all unfined and at times also unfiltered.
They bottle all our wines in-house using a dedicated bottling line.
Available in
Belgium, Hong Kong, Netherlands, UK
Seeking Distribution in
Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, UAE, USA, Vietnam
Winemaker Bio
Glen Hayley’s winemaking philosophy is driven by authenticity; wine that speaks of place, preserving the character of the fruit and celebrating the vineyard in which it was grown. It is the fine balance between scrupulous attention to detail and minimal intervention that allows wine to fully express provenance. Glen’s passion for natural fermentation techniques extends beyond wine to sour beer, cider and fermented food.
Serendipity saw Glen discover the world of wine. A job in the industry on a gap year in Vancouver offered an addictive glimpse of his future vocation. Returning to Melbourne, Glen completed a Bachelor of Viticultural Science and Wine Production, while working in cool and warm climate wineries across Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand and the USA. His time with premium new world Chardonnay and Pinot Noir producers in Central Otago and Sonoma County, along with a concentration on white wines in the Loire Valley and the Mosel, helped shape his thinking.
His desire to focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay saw Glen join Kooyong and Port Phillip Estate in 2009. In 2015 Glen became Chief Winemaker.
The viticulture and winemaking teams at Kooyong and Port Phillip Estate are intensely collaborative. The team includes chief viticulturist Stuart Marshall and David Merli and winemaker Christian Bradshaw.
