Dromana Estate
555 Old Moorooduc Rd, Tuerong VIC 3933 · $$
One of the Peninsula's founding names, cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir alongside a small run of Italian-leaning bottlings on the quieter hinterland side.
Sorrento Sunset 5:35 PM
Winter Insider · August 2026 Winter 2026
Photo · Wikimedia Commons
Tuerong is a rural hinterland locality on the Mornington Peninsula's northern wine country, 70 km from Melbourne, known for the Quealy Winemakers cellar door and the Devilbend Reservoir.
Tuerong is where some of the Peninsula's best bottles come from roads most visitors never take. Yabby Lake is the anchor - Halliday Top 100, relaxed cellar-door program - and the same back roads hold Dexter Wines and a cluster of low-volume producers whose fruit ends up in Melbourne's better wine lists. Quiet, specific, worth the detour.
The wine-country back door, where some of the Peninsula's best bottles come from roads most visitors never take.
Is Tuerong the right base?
Dropping in without knowing where you are headed - Tuerong only works if you choose the wineries in advance.
Tuerong in brief
A perfect day here
Yabby Lake late morning, one more tasting nearby, lunch with a vineyard view, Devilbend walk if there is still daylight.
This is the pocket where Melbourne sommeliers buy wine, which tells you more than any brochure will.
- Editor's note
What's mapped here
Wine & producers
The producers worth the appointment - and the ones already shaping the region's vintage conversation.
555 Old Moorooduc Rd, Tuerong VIC 3933 · $$
One of the Peninsula's founding names, cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir alongside a small run of Italian-leaning bottlings on the quieter hinterland side.
110 Tuerong Rd, Tuerong VIC 3933 · $$$
Three winemakers, small-batch Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and cult-favourite status among Australia's best sommeliers.
86-112 Tuerong Rd, Tuerong VIC 3933 · $$$
Tom Carson's single-block Chardonnay and Pinot Noir program, poured from a relaxed cellar door with one of the Peninsula's loveliest lunch decks.
See the editorial rankings → Best Cellar Doors on the Peninsula
Read this place properly
Long-form editorial that builds the picture of a place beyond any single visit.
9 April 2026
Everyone sells the Mornington Peninsula as a pinot noir region. They are half right. The quiet argument of the last three vintages is that the chardonnay is now the more interesting bottle on the table, and the one worth cellaring.
10 April 2026
The drive to make on your first visit, or the one to send a friend on when you are out of time to explain why you keep coming back. Coffee, ridge, hinterland, ocean, village, bay - in that order, in four hours.
Planning guides
Long-form editorial that helps you build a weekend, not just a list of places.
Keep going
Because a Peninsula trip is always made up of two or three pockets, not one.
Hinterland · village
Moorooduc is the wine country's quieter northern edge - further from the ridge road, less visited, different enough in soil and latitude to grow serious chardonnay that the broader market still underrates. Moorooduc Estate and Barmah Park are the anchors. Use it for a slow cellar-door morning before heading up to Red Hill for lunch.
Mornington · town
Mornington was the gateway town for a long time - the first real stop on the road south, somewhere to buy petrol before pressing on to beaches and vineyards. That undersells it now. A genuinely good main street, a Wednesday farmers' market on the Esplanade worth getting up for, a foreshore with bathing boxes and a saltwater pool - Mornington has quietly become a whole-day destination rather than a waypoint. It's also the most practical Peninsula base: north to Mount Martha's beaches, south to Red Hill's vineyards, fifteen minutes from coast in either direction.
Red Hill · village
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.
On the map
Every editorially verified pin in Tuerong on one screen - toggle a category, click any marker for the editor's note.
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The Insider Note
One pick, one weather-proof backup, one thing to skip. Written on the Peninsula, sent when there is something worth knowing.
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