Peninsula This Weekend — 6 to 7 June

Peninsula This Weekend is our weekly dispatch: the plan we’d actually make for the weekend ahead, the booking worth locking in, and the bit of weekend thinking we’d happily do for you.

King’s Birthday is the Peninsula’s loudest winter weekend. Forty-plus cellar doors are open across both days. The Winter Wine Festival fills the Showgrounds on Saturday. The twelfth Mornington Winter Music Festival is running across twenty Mornington venues. Truffle season is on at Red Hill and Flinders. Stonier has its King’s Birthday lawn open at Merricks. Melbourne comes down.

A long weekend like this rewards the visitor who picks two things and protects the gaps between them. Saturday is the crowded day. Sunday is where the weekend actually settles. The weather is true early June, with rain a live possibility, and none of it changes the plan. Everything that matters this weekend is built for fires, pavilions, or thermal water.

The booking worth locking in

Winter Wine Festival, Saturday at Red Hill Showgrounds

The Winter Wine Festival is the single most representative ticket of the weekend. Thirty-eight Peninsula wineries pouring together, around 150 wines, an Ed Merrison masterclass upgrade for one structured hour inside the day, Riedel glass in the price. It is the day to taste across the region’s winter list without driving the ridge.

The masterclass upgrade is the right call for anyone with real curiosity about the Peninsula’s pinot. The $30 designated driver ticket is the quiet practical inclusion most read-throughs miss.

Saturday 6 June, 11am–4pm, Red Hill Showgrounds. $90 general admission. If the festival is full by Friday, a Red Hill or Flinders truffle hunt is the alternative editorial booking and both still tend to carry last-minute spots into the long weekend.

The slower companion move

Stonier Pies & Pinot, Sunday at Merricks

Sunday at Merricks is the weekend’s calmest hour. Free entry, lawn open, fires lit, pies from Peninsula Backhouse, wines by the glass and bottle. The actual editorial story is the new release: Stonier’s 2025 Pinot Noir is available across the weekend, with winemakers and owners hosting the bookable vineyard tours and in-depth tastings on Sunday and Monday.

The shape: Showgrounds on Saturday for breadth, Stonier on Sunday for depth and the new vintage. Most visitors will only do the Saturday and call the weekend done. The Peninsula read is to keep Sunday for Merricks.

The local edge

Tall Poppy at Kelli Lundberg, Moorooduc

A Melbourne Design Week exhibition that marks a first for the Mornington Peninsula. Fifteen Australian designers and makers, curated by Tiffany Jade. Closes Sunday 7 June. Half an hour at Moorooduc before any move further up the ridge for lunch, free, indoor, and a quiet trip worth making before it’s gone.

The Mornington Winter Music Festival is also running across the town both days, twelve years in, mostly free, mostly walk-in, follow up if it sounds like yours.

If the bed isn’t booked yet, Friday or Sunday night sit better on value than Saturday. If only Saturday is left, book the cellar door first and the bed after.

Winter Wine Festival Sat 6 June, 11am–4pm, Red Hill Showgrounds $90 GA / $105 Masterclass / $30 Designated Driver Book via Humanitix

Stonier Pies & Pinot Sun 7 June, 11am–5pm, Merricks Free entry, walk-in. Pies $12–18, wines by glass and bottle. New-release 2025 Pinot Noir available across the weekend.

Tall Poppy at Kelli Lundberg Final day Sun 7 June, Moorooduc Free, no booking, all-weather.

Prices may change. Confirm current rates directly with each operator before booking.