Canonical: https://peninsulainsider.com.au/explore/places/merricks/ Publisher: Peninsula Insider Published: unknown Modified: unknown Format: public main text, generated from the canonical page; imagery and interactive controls omitted. Dates and caveats below retain their page meaning; this format is not a new fact check. [Red Hill & Merricks]() # Merricks A visitor walks past the weatherboard facade of Merricks General Store, its painted sign framed by a red flowering vine Photo · Peter Foster, courtesy of Visit Victoria Merricks in 12 photographs 1 / 12 A visitor walks past the weatherboard facade of Merricks General Store, its painted sign framed by a red flowering vine Merricks General Wine Store, Mornington Peninsula. Photo · Peter Foster, courtesy of Visit Victoria Merricks is a hinterland village on the Mornington Peninsula's southern wine country, 90 km from Melbourne, anchored by the Merricks General Wine Store crossroads. Merricks is where the Peninsula's wine country starts to feel private. There is almost no main street to speak of, just a low-slung hall, winding vineyard roads, and a cluster of estates and restaurants that reward people who know where to turn off. The light is softer here than in Red Hill proper and the bay feels unexpectedly close. It is one of the Peninsula's best places to stay if your idea of a weekend away means vines outside the window, lunch that goes too long, and very little noise. Photo · Courtesy of Visit Victoria At a glance **From Melbourne** approximately 1 hour **Best season** Autumn **Stay** half a day **Best for** locals, wine buyers **Avoid** school-holiday lunch rush Insider If you want the best version of Merricks, anchor the day around the General Store before noon. A quiet corridor between the ridge and the bay, with the best wine shop on the Peninsula. Peninsula Insider - editor's note Is Merricks the right base? ## Who this place rewards - and who should keep driving ### It's for - locals - wine buyers - the stop that holds a day together ### It's not for - people who need lots of shops - visitors wanting a stand-alone town Treating it as a destination rather than a stop - it's part of a day, not the whole day. Merricks in brief ## Merricks in 4 points - 01 Merricks is a small rural village that punches above its size - Pt Leo Estate alone makes it worth the detour. - 02 Best for: serious wine and art visitors; walkers on the Red Hill Rail Trail; people who value understatement. - 03 Signature experience: lunch at Pt Leo Estate with the sculpture park, then a walk to Merricks Beach. - 04 Half a day to a full day. No accommodation within the village itself. A perfect day here ## A day in Merricks Merricks General Store for coffee and wine, one cellar door nearby, afternoon at the beach. If you want the best version of Merricks, anchor the day around the General Store before noon. - Editor's note What's mapped here - [**3** places to eat]() - [**3** cellar doors & makers]() - [**1** ways to explore]() - [**3** escape plans]() - [**4** journal pieces]() Explore Merricks by experience ## Category guides for Merricks Deeper editorial guides focused on one experience category within Merricks. - [Merricks Wine Pt. Leo Estate, Stonier, Scorpo and the eastern slope producers.]() Eat & drink ## Where to eat and drink in Merricks Restaurants, cafés, bakeries, and pubs - each with an editor note, not a star rating. [More to eat in Merricks →]() Restaurant [Merricks]() ### [Laura at Pt. Leo]() 3649 Frankston-Flinders Rd, Merricks VIC 3916 An intimate fine-dining room at Pt. Leo Estate, with seasonal menus and an unhurried view across the grounds. anniversary long lunch [Read notes]() [Book]() Photo: Peter Foster, courtesy of Visit Victoria Restaurant [Merricks]() ### [Merricks General Wine Store]() 3460 Frankston-Flinders Rd, Merricks VIC 3916 The old Merricks general store reborn as a cellar door, bakery, and produce-forward lunch room. slow long lunch [Read notes]() [Book]() Restaurant [Merricks]() ### [Point Leo Wine Terrace]() 3649 Frankston-Flinders Rd, Merricks VIC 3916 The all-day casual option at Point Leo Estate, wood-fired flatbreads, estate wines, and a terrace facing the bay and the sculpture park. cellar door view [Read notes]() [Book]() [See the editorial rankings → Best Restaurants on the Peninsula]() Wine & producers ## Cellar doors and makers around Merricks The producers worth the appointment - and the ones already shaping the region's vintage conversation. [Merricks wine guide →]() Winery [Merricks]() ### [Baillieu Vineyard]() 51 Stanleys Rd, Merricks VIC 3916 A thoughtfully managed Merricks estate making elegant Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that rewards the drive to find it. cellar door slow [Read notes]() [Book]() Winery [Merricks]() ### [Elgee Park]() 89 Junction Rd, Merricks North VIC 3926 The Baillieu family's 1972 vineyard, the planting that started the modern Peninsula wine region, still in family hands, still making restrained Chardonnay and Viognier. cellar door slow [Read notes]() [Book]() Winery [Merricks]() ### [Kerri Greens]() 235 Stanleys Rd, Red Hill South VIC 3937 Tom McCarthy and Lucas Blanck's new-school Peninsula label, lighter-style Pinot, approachable Chardonnay, and a cellar door that feels like a bar. cellar door slow [Read notes]() [Book]() [See the editorial rankings → Best Cellar Doors on the Peninsula]() Get outside ## Explore moves anchored to Merricks Walks, beaches, lookouts, and markets worth scheduling around the meals. [Explore near Merricks →]() [Gallery]() [Merricks]() 1.5 h ### [Pt. Leo Estate Sculpture Park]() The Pt. Leo Sculpture Park is a sixteen-acre outdoor gallery set inside the grounds of one of the Peninsula's most ambitious winery estates, with more than seventy significant works from major Australian and international artists - including pieces by Antony Gormley, Emily Floyd, and Marcus Tatton - scattered through the lawns and gardens above the vines. The walking loop takes about an hour to an hour and a half, and the best way to approach it is with a wine in hand from the estate's own terrace. Entry is ticketed and the work is genuinely worth the attention - this is not a winery decorated with sculpture, it is a serious outdoor gallery inside a winery. Allow a full half-day if you are also eating at Pt. Leo Restaurant or Laura. This is one of the Peninsula's most complete art-and-food destinations and deserves the time. [Open the guide →]() Use it in sequence ## Escapes that already route through Merricks These plans have been written around the landscape here - not bolted on after. [Plan a Merricks weekend →]() Cape Schanck, Mornington Peninsula. Photo: Courtesy of Visit Victoria Plan ### [Flinders and the Cape: A One-Night Reset]() For people who want salt air, one excellent meal, and just enough structure to stop planning. One-night escape · Best for couple · Flinders [View Plan →]() Sorrento Back Beach, Mornington Peninsula. Photo: SHERPA Projects Pty Ltd, courtesy of Visit Victoria Plan ### [The Sorrento Off-Season Weekend]() Two nights based in Sorrento, with the back beach, Point Nepean and a village dinner. The second evening takes you out to Pt. Leo Estate. Two-night escape · Best for couple · Sorrento [View Plan →]() Alba Thermal Springs & Spa, Fingal, Mornington Peninsula. Photo: Courtesy of Visit Victoria Plan ### [A Peninsula Wellness Weekend]() Thermal pools, a coastal walk and vineyard meals, with two nights to slow down at the same Red Hill stay. Two-night escape · Best for couple · Peninsula [View Plan →]() Read this place properly ## Journal pieces connected to Merricks Long-form editorial that builds the picture of a place beyond any single visit. [More in the Journal →]() Editor's Letter 8 min ### [A Winter Peninsula Weekend: The Case for Coming in July]() 13 April 2026 Short days, cheap rooms, empty dining rooms, a fire in every cellar door with a hearth, and a coast that looks like a different country in a southerly. Winter is the Peninsula's most underrated season and the one that gives the region back to the people who actually live here. Hub Guide 8 min ### [Merricks: The Peninsula Insider Guide]() 2 May 2026 Merricks is the understated corridor between bay and ridge where the Peninsula's wine country starts to feel private. Come for the general store, the estates, the pub and the rare pleasure of a district that seems to know exactly how little fuss it needs. Insider Edit 10 min ### [Best Spas on the Mornington Peninsula - The Tier Guide]() 14 April 2026 The Mornington Peninsula is Australia's most serious wellness destination. This is the tier-ranked guide to hot springs, resort spas, and day spas - which to book, and for which kind of day. Service 9 min ### [First Time on the Peninsula: The Honest Starter Guide]() 10 April 2026 You have never been to the Mornington Peninsula. You have a free weekend. You want to know what is actually good, what is overrated, and what the people who live here would tell you to do. This is that guide. Planning guides ## Service guides for your Merricks trip Long-form editorial that helps you build a weekend, not just a list of places. [All Peninsula guides →]() [3-Day Peninsula Itinerary →]() [Weekend Plans →]() [Self-Drive Winery Tour →]() [Best Brunch Guide →]() [Hot Springs Guide →]() [Winter Guide →]() [Dog-Friendly Peninsula →]() Where it sits ## Merricks on the Peninsula [See the full Peninsula map →]() Go deeper ## Explore Merricks by experience Each guide focuses on one experience category - useful when you already know what you’re here for. - [Merricks Wine Benchmark producers in a quiet farming corridor]() Keep going ## Nearby places worth knowing next Because a Peninsula trip is always made up of two or three pockets, not one. Red Hill · village ### [Red Hill]() On a misty basalt plateau above the Peninsula's central ridge, Red Hill has arranged some of the strongest food and wine in Victoria into a circuit that rewards the unhurried. A village by strict measure - a general store, a monthly market, vineyard restaurants that don't advertise from the highway - it nonetheless organises the whole upper Peninsula around itself. The winery restaurant cluster here - Ten Minutes by Tractor, Montalto, Paringa Estate, Principia - has no serious peer in the state. Come on Saturday; plan lunch first. Peninsula Tip · town ### [Sorrento]() Sorrento is where the Peninsula narrows to a point and the social temperature rises. This is old-money beach culture done with increasing sophistication - limestone cliffs, a ferry to Queenscliff across the Heads, ocean baths carved from rock at low tide - alongside a main street that has quietly evolved into something genuinely worth driving for. The summer crowd is real and relentless, but the town earns it. Off-season Sorrento is a revelation: the light changes, the restaurants empty out to their best selves, and you can walk the ocean beach from one end to the other without encountering anyone but locals. The back beach at dusk is one of the best things on the Peninsula, full stop. Stay at least two nights. [← Explore more Peninsula destinations]() Got a Merricks secret? If there's a Merricks corner you think we'd cover better with your help - a back-bay swimming hole, a producer's farm-gate, a local pub that hits - send it through. Editorial review, named credit if we publish it. [Tell us about Merricks →]() Something wrong on this page, or is this your business? [Tell us what to fix]() and you get a case reference back. corrections@peninsulainsider.com.au reaches the same desk. ## The Insider Note The Peninsula worth knowing. An occasional email. What's on, where we'd go and what's worth knowing next. Independent editorial. Sent when there is something worth knowing. Unsubscribe any time [Privacy]() On the map ## Merricks, by location Every editorially verified pin in Merricks on one screen - toggle a category, click any marker for the editor's note. Loading map… On the calendar in this place ## Events in Merricks Coming up in Merricks, pulled from the events registry. [All events →]() - [1 May – 30 April 2027 ### ✦ Pt. Leo Estate Sculpture Park Merricks An outdoor sculpture park spanning 16.5 acres, with more than 70 contemporary works and two walking loops at a working winery. Open daily from 11am; last entry 4:30pm. Arts]()