Best Value Winery

2025 Best Value Winery 

Mulline – Geelong, Victoria 

Mulline has been named the 2025 Halliday Best Value Winery.

Value never goes out of fashion but it’s particularly important right now, and we’re always on the hunt, always trying to find where value is at its keenest.

This year we took the view that $60 is the new $50, and that any winery that manages to offer wine(s) at the upper extremes of quality for $60 or under would be in contention for our Best Value Winery award. The past five or so years have seen the top end of Australian wine ramp up the prices of the most sought-after wines quite alarmingly, and so any winery that competes at this same quality level at more reachable prices deserves to be recognised. We like producers who have both their sights set high and their feet on the ground.

Mulline is the brainchild of Ben Mullen and Ben Hine.

It’s time for us to recognise the magnificence that is Mulline. 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.

Such excellence never springs out of nowhere, and that’s certainly the case with Mulline. Clearly there are some fantastic vineyard resources in play here but the person who makes the wine – Ben Mullen – could not come more highly credentialled. He grew up in the Barossa, studied winemaking at the University of Adelaide, and has since worked at an incredible list of wineries: Yarra Yering, Oakridge, Craggy Range (NZ), Leeuwin Estate, Domain Dujac (France) and Clyde Park among them.

Mulline wins our Best Value Winery award courtesy of the fact that its wines are of outstanding quality, full stop, regardless of price, but also because of these startling facts: 19 of Mulline’s wines, all priced under $60, have been awarded 90 points or higher in the past year. Fifteen of these wines scored 94 or higher, 13 scored 95 or higher, and five of the wines scored 97. Mulline’s wines are not bargain budget, for certain, but in the overall scheme of things quality that bats this deep, all at $60 or below, is as rare as it is worth celebrating. – Campbell Mattinson

Each of Mulline's wines are priced at $60 or less.

“We're not there to put stupid prices on our wines,” says winemaker Ben Mullen. “We just want to make the best wine possible.” 

Ben established Mulline with business partner Ben Hine in 2019 (Mulline is a blend of their surnames). Although they’re both originally from South Australia, Mulline is solely focused on the Geelong region. “We saw a real opportunity in Geelong,” says Ben (Hine). “It’s such an amazing region with three very distinctive subregions, and we didn’t see a lot of other labels who were making wine across its subregions or celebrating its diversity.” 

The Bens admit they’ve hit their sweet spot in terms of the varieties and vineyards they work with, but say the job never ends when it comes to making great wine at a reasonable price point. “I want the wines to get better and better every year,” says Ben (Mullen).

Previous Best Value Winery recipients include Hoddles Creek Estate (2015), West Cape Howe Wines (2016), Larry Cherubino Wines (2017), Grosset (2018), Provenance Wines (2019), Domaine Naturaliste (2020), Best’s Wines (2021), Lake Breeze Wines (2022), Deep Woods Estate (2023) and Oakridge Wines (2024).

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This is an edited extract from the 2025 Halliday Wine Companion, with reviews by James Halliday, Campbell Mattinson, Dave Brookes, Jane Faulkner, Jeni Port, Marcus Ellis, Mike Bennie, Philip Rich, Shanteh Wale and Toni Paterson MW. Cover art by Vera Babida.

Image credit: Mulline.