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Red Hill & Merricks

Red Hill South

Vines and a farmhouse gate at Red Hill South in early autumn light

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Red Hill South is a quiet rural locality on the lower Red Hill plateau on the Mornington Peninsula, 85 km from Melbourne, with a country pub, established cellar doors and a high concentration of farmhouse bed-and-breakfasts.

Red Hill South is the lower, quieter half of the Red Hill plateau, and for visitors who already know the headline village it is often the better stay. The roads drop down off the ridge into a softer landscape - a community shop, a small handful of cellar doors, a popular country pub, and a long catalogue of bed-and-breakfasts in renovated farmhouses. The cellar doors here - Foxeys Hangout, Quealy, Lindenderry - pull a different crowd to the ridge-top names, and the lunch options below Red Hill village proper are some of the most rewarding on the Peninsula. The Red Hill Market on the first Saturday of the month sits between the two villages and is genuinely the best market on the Peninsula. Stay here when the upper village is full or when you want a cellar-door weekend that is slightly off the obvious circuit.

The quieter, lower-elevation half of the Peninsula's wine country - better B&Bs, fewer crowds, the same cellar-door belt.

Peninsula Insider - editor's note

Is Red Hill South the right base?

Who this place rewards - and who should keep driving

It's for

  • returning Peninsula visitors
  • couples on a long-weekend B&B
  • market-day shoppers

It's not for

  • first-time visitors who haven't seen Red Hill village
  • anyone needing beach proximity

Driving past the country pub assuming it's nothing - it's a serious lunch destination most weekends.

Red Hill South in brief

Red Hill South in four lines

  1. 01 Red Hill South is the lower-elevation half of the Red Hill plateau - same wine country, quieter roads, more bed-and-breakfasts than its better-known neighbour.
  2. 02 Best for: returning Peninsula visitors who already know Red Hill; couples on a B&B weekend; market shoppers.
  3. 03 Signature experience: Red Hill Market on a first Saturday morning, then a long lunch at one of the lower cellar doors.
  4. 04 A weekend; two nights minimum to see the cellar doors properly.
  5. 05 Less foot traffic than Red Hill village proper - book the cellar doors but you will not be queuing.

A perfect day here

A day in Red Hill South

Red Hill Market on a first Saturday morning, late lunch at a lower-cellar-door restaurant, afternoon flight at a second cellar door, dinner held loosely at the pub.

Stay at a Red Hill South farmhouse B&B and walk to a cellar door for the wine-country weekend the brochures keep promising.

- Editor's note

Planning guides

Service guides for your Red Hill South 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

Red Hill South on the Peninsula

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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

Main Ridge

Main Ridge is the highest part of the Peninsula wine country, and the most forgiving to pinot noir. A few degrees cooler than Red Hill proper, wetter in winter, and foggy on the right mornings - if you drew the perfect place to grow cool-climate grapes in Victoria, it would look something like this. There is no real village centre, just a crossroads, a hall, and a handful of the most serious cellar doors on the Peninsula scattered through ferny side roads. Main Ridge rewards people who want to understand wine country rather than just photograph it: the single-vineyard bottles from this sub-region are consistently among the region's best, the estates are small and run by the people who own them, and nobody is trying to sell you a wedding venue. Come for a morning tasting at one of the serious producers, then drive ten minutes in any direction for lunch.

Red Hill · village

Merricks

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.

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.

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Curated by our editors.

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Peninsula This Weekend 18 to 19 July

July sits in the quieter stretch of Peninsula winter, and that is the point. The lead booking is a truffle hunt at Red Hill. Sunday is for the sculpture park at Pt. Leo.

  • How to Build a Red Hill Saturday
  • The Cellar Door Short List
  • Things to Do on the Mornington Peninsula
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On the map

Red Hill South, by location

Every editorially verified pin in Red Hill South on one screen - toggle a category, click any marker for the editor's note.

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On the calendar in this place

Events in Red Hill South

Coming up in Red Hill South, pulled from the events registry.

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