Attwoods – Mon Climat Vineyard, Ballarat
Tucked in at 500 meters elevation in Ballarat, Victoria, the Mon Climat Vineyard crams one hectare of pinot noir into quartz-strewn Ordovician soil, a 2015 planting now nine years young under Troy Walsh and Luke Poulson. Its debut wine, the 2023 Attwoods Mon Climat Pinot Noir ($120), landed last year – a remarkable single-site flex from a region of 20-plus wineries making a name for themselves in Australia’s cool-climate wine scene. It’s a site designed to make wines with a tight, vibrant thread, born from a high-density setup – 1.2m by 0.85m spacing – that chases elegance over volume by betting on competition between a sprawl of vines. Ballarat’s warm days and frigid nights stretch out the growing season – and Walsh and Poulson are here for it, chasing elegance in a place most wouldn’t dare.
