Sorrento Sunset 7:27 PM Case 02 is open · Play
Spring Insider · October 2026 Spring 2026
A local point of view.
A Peninsula worth knowing.
PlayWhere in the Peninsula is PI?
She’s out again.
Case 02: Took the long way to dinner. Ask the locals, read the land, find her before sunset. Find her and go in the draw for $250 to dine at Doot Doot Doot, Jackalope.
Free to play, no account.
The local wine edit
Go for a ridge tasting, stay for a vineyard lunch, or book a smaller producer. Find your kind of visit, then confirm current hours.
Start with the kind of visit
Choose the shape of the day first. Then check the producer's current hours and booking details before travelling.
Make one cellar door the anchor when you have only part of the day. Choose the wine interest first, then check its tasting format.
Walk-in labels do not promise space today. Confirm hours and availability with the producer.
Browse tasting-first visitsChoose a winery with a kitchen, book the meal, then fit the tasting around it. Leave room for the visit itself.
A restaurant reservation and a tasting reservation may be separate.
Find wineries with lunchBuild the day around a confirmed tasting time. Add another stop only after checking the journey and the available appointment.
Booking policies vary by producer; the guide is a starting point, not live availability.
Read the appointment guidePlan the return trip first. Arrange a designated driver or transport before tasting. Use the winery map for location, then check the route and timing.
Make wine optional. Pair the area with art and galleries or a rainy-day plan. Ask the venue about non-alcoholic options before booking.
The cellar-door shortlist
An editorial shortlist. Individual check dates describe the recorded research; confirm current hours and bookings with the producer.
A serious single-vineyard producer with one of the Peninsula's most dependable restaurant terraces.
Small-production cool-climate pinot and chardonnay poured in one of the prettiest tasting rooms on the ridge.
Mike Aylward's precise, minimal cellar door turning out some of the Peninsula's most quietly obsessive pinot noir.
A sculpture park walk followed by a long bay-view lunch in the glass-walled restaurant.
The Peninsula's most complete estate experience, sculpture, garden, cellar door, and a one-hat kitchen, done at a scale that still feels human rather than corporate.
The single-block tasting is a practical education in why micro-terroir matters, side-by-side pinot noirs from adjacent slopes that actually taste different from each other.
Winery dining
Pair a tasting with a meal at the same estate. Check the dining room’s current service days and book the meal separately where required.
Loosen one and the good stuff comes back. Or tell PI what you are after.
The ranked list, argued honestly. If you only read one wine page, read this one.
The bookings that repay the effort: smaller pours, longer conversations, back vintages on the bench.
Why the ridge grows the country’s most consistent cool-climate pinot, and whose to buy.
Who is making the benchmark bottles right now, and what they cellar like.
The rooms that welcome the dog as readily as the driver.
How the region fits together: soils, subregions and the drives between them.
Release weekends and winemaker dinners live in What’s On.
Swipe to see more visit filters
Save keeps a shortlist in Saved places. Add to trip puts a chosen stop into My trip, where you can arrange your day.
You can start as a guest on this device. Saving or adding a stop does not reserve a table, room or ticket. Check opening times and bookings with the operator before travelling.
The full list
Find cellar doors, breweries and distilleries by location and the visit you want.
A serious single-vineyard producer with one of the Peninsula's most dependable restaurant terraces.
Small-production cool-climate pinot and chardonnay poured in one of the prettiest tasting rooms on the ridge.
Mike Aylward's precise, minimal cellar door turning out some of the Peninsula's most quietly obsessive pinot noir.
A sculpture park walk followed by a long bay-view lunch in the glass-walled restaurant.
The Peninsula's most complete estate experience, sculpture, garden, cellar door, and a one-hat kitchen, done at a scale that still feels human rather than corporate.
The single-block tasting is a practical education in why micro-terroir matters, side-by-side pinot noirs from adjacent slopes that actually taste different from each other.
Single-vineyard Tuerong Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Tod and Debbie Dexter; buy the wines online, as the property is not open to the public.
Quealy helped teach the Peninsula what it could grow beyond pinot and chardonnay, the cellar door still carries that experimental, unpretentious spirit.
Estate-grown pinot noir alongside a seasonal degustation rooted in the Ridge vineyard.
The vineyard at the heart of Jackalope Hotel, a showpiece single-site program and the home of both Rare Hare and Doot Doot Doot.
Stay above the vines where the architecture, cellar door and dining room are all part of the same Red Hill South visit.
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.
Avani is the Peninsula's quiet Syrah specialist, and that alone is reason enough to drive here.
The cellar door the Peninsula wine crowd refers to in lowered voices, not a secret, but genuinely under-visited, and better for it.
The only cellar door on the Peninsula that turns a flight into a small meal by design, not as an add-on.
A Peninsula gin distillery with a gin-school blending session that has quietly become one of the region's best wet-weather plans.
One of the founding estates of the Peninsula, now surprising visitors with Italian and Spanish varieties nobody else on the Peninsula grows.
The right stop when the Red Hill cellar doors are at long-weekend capacity, quieter, equally good, and slightly easier on the wallet.
Selma and Jonathan Lowther's 1981 planting, one of the oldest on the Peninsula, with a cellar door that doubles as a small contemporary art gallery.
David Lloyd's tiny cult estate, single-clone Pinot Noirs from individual rows, plus Gamay, made for the Burgundy obsessives.
Elgee Park is where the modern Mornington Peninsula wine industry actually began, 1972, three years before anyone else had the nerve to try.
Foxeys is one of the Peninsula's most consistently pleasant cellar doors, sunny, unpretentious, and serious about the wine without making you work for it.
Barnaby Flanders' micro-production Chardonnay and Pinot project, rigour, restraint, and regular appearances in the Halliday Top 100.
The cellar door where the wines are already sold out and the conversation with Kevin is the product.
The most polished of the bayside breweries, deliberate fit-out, generous deck, and a rotating list that rewards repeat visits.
Kerri Greens is the Peninsula's new-school face, the cellar door to recommend to friends who find the ridge estates a little too serious.
Lightfoot rewards a quiet weekday visit rather than a peak-season Saturday, small, focused, and the counterpoint the ridge's bigger names need.
Main Ridge Estate is the vineyard that started it all, planted in 1975 when nobody in Victoria quite believed cool-climate Pinot could be taken seriously.
A small, long-standing Merricks estate making one of the Peninsula's rare serious Shiraz programs alongside Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Richard McIntyre's pioneering low-intervention estate, home to the Robinson Chardonnay, one of Australia's genuine Chardonnay reference points.
The quieter, more Italian-feeling sibling of Foxeys Hangout, a few minutes away on a tumbling Main Ridge slope, bookings accepted Thursday to Sunday.
The in-town craft brewery bar, a working brewhouse, the full core range on tap, and live music on Friday nights in a warehouse taproom.
Nazaaray is one of the true eccentrics of the Peninsula wine scene, the one that cannot be replicated, and that is precisely the point.
Three winemakers, small-batch Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and cult-favourite status among Australia's best sommeliers.
One of the very few Peninsula estates where the founder is routinely in the room, pouring and talking, on a Saturday afternoon.
A quieter Dromana-side estate making honest, characterful wines, Viognier, Sangiovese, and Pinot alongside the Peninsula classics.
The only Peninsula cellar door where you leave understanding exactly where Mornington Chardonnay sits in the global conversation, and how close it is getting.
The Peninsula's original craft brewery, Belgian-style ales from the only estate hop farm in Victoria.
One of the Peninsula's most photographed cellar-door positions, sweeping Western Port views and a serious traditional-method sparkling program.
Scorpo is the vineyard other Peninsula winemakers drink at home, the Pinot Gris alone warrants the appointment.
Former horse-training stables turned sprawling brewery destination, wood-fired kitchen, acres of lawn, and Sunday roasts all year round.
When you want a cellar door built around the wine rather than the experience around the wine, Stonier is the answer on the Peninsula.
A family-run estate with one of the Peninsula's broadest varietal ranges, Sangiovese, Marzemino, and Picolit alongside cool-climate classics.
The Peninsula's Pinot Grigio pioneer, a family-friendly cellar door on Main Ridge with Italian-inspired food and the estate's Prosecco by the glass.
The Peninsula's only amphora winery, terracotta-aged Sangiovese, Fiano, and Nebbiolo, and a cellar worth visiting on its own terms.
A founding Red Hill estate, mid-1980s, renewed focus on single-vineyard Pinot Noir and a deck view to Western Port that earns the drive.
Australia's first dedicated gluten-free brewery, unexpectedly good beer, a small unfussy taproom, and worth the drive to Dromana.
Clear one and the ridge reopens.
The Journal
The case for Peninsula chardonnay, argued bottle by bottle.
The shortlist behind The Six: how we pick the rooms worth the drive.
One ridge, one day: a suggested Saturday route around Red Hill.
Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are the benchmark varieties, the cool maritime climate and basalt soils of the Red Hill plateau produce some of Australia's most consistent cool-climate examples. The region also has a growing reputation for Pinot Gris and Shiraz. Over 50 cellar doors are open to visitors, concentrated on the ridge between Red Hill and Main Ridge.
Booking arrangements differ by winery and tasting. Main Ridge Estate requires a booking. Ten Minutes by Tractor recommends reservations and accepts walk-ins subject to availability; Paringa Estate recommends bookings. Restaurant bookings are separate from cellar-door tastings. Confirm current arrangements directly before travelling.
The Mornington Peninsula has over 200 vineyards and approximately 50–60 cellar doors open to visitors. Most are concentrated on the Red Hill plateau between Dromana, Red Hill, and Main Ridge. The region is compact, you can visit three cellar doors in an afternoon without rushing if you stay on the ridge.
The Insider Note
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