Hoddles Creek Estate

Written By Campbell Mattinson

Hoddles Creek Estate is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery — Campbell Mattinson's highest honour.
Yarra Valley.

If you love Australian chardonnay and/or pinot noir, then Hoddles Creek Estate in the Yarra Valley is your ground zero.

The case

Every year, for the past twenty plus years, Hoddles Creek Estate has been the only must-buy producer of chardonnay and pinot noir on the Australian market. Full stop. Indeed both the quality and the value consistently on offer from Hoddles Creek Estate is so striking that, many times over the past 20+ years, I’ve wondered a) if this wonderful producer is too good to be true and b) whether it can be sustained. Given that Hoddles Creek Estate was established in 1997, and that it’s been churning out the hits every year ever since, it is now overwhelmingly clear that a) it is true and b) that it can be sustained. The fact that Huddles Creek Estate also makes terrific pinot gris and pinot blanc is the icing on the cake of the Hoddles Creek story.

It’s important to note that Hoddles Creek Estate has redefined what value means, in Australia, for both chardonnay and more especially for pinot noir. The wines from this estate are not just good because they are inexpensive; they are high grade examples of their variety, in their own right. Hoddles Creek Estate is not just a value producer: it is the real deal.

Perfect evidence of this was the 2024 Hoddles Creek Estate Chardonnay (AU$26), which is a stunning wine. The 2025 Hoddles Creek Estate Chardonnay is up there with.

Wines that carry the case.

Hoddles Creek Estate is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery – the highest honour awarded by Australian wine critic Campbell Mattinson. 10-Star status recognises one thing: the quality of the wine in the glass, every glass, across the range. The full list of 10-Star Wineries constitutes Australia's Best Wineries.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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