The Mornington Peninsula is a changed place. It’s still got the crackingly beautiful double-sided coastline. The views from Red Hill. The summery bushland from Main Ridge to Cape Schanck. And of course, all the food and wine to make a heart specialist wince – but suddenly it’s an entirely more serious, and impressive, producer of quality wine. If you think Mornington Peninsula wines have been on the whole disappointing in the past, then think again. A new era is in our midst.

And it is for a number of reasons, not the least because its perceived main weakness has now been tackled head on. Until recently the Mornington Peninsula had almost no “big company” involvement, and the thing about the presence of big companies in a wine region is that they bring with them resources, professionalism, and the kind of competition that usually turns out to be healthy.

They also, ironically, make it easier (perhaps psychologically as much as anything) for small, quality driven producers to go off and do their own thing – because the middle ground has been taken care of. It’s good for everyone.

And suddenly, now, the big companies have moved in: most noticeably in international beer and wine giant Lion Nathan at Stonier and more recently in Beringer Blass at T’Gallant, but also in an enlarged and more robust Dromana Estate (now putting out wines under the Dromana Estate, Schinus, Mornington Estate, Garry Crittenden and David Traeger labels), and in the projects of world-acclaimed pinot producer Larry McKenna (with as-yet unreleased wines under the Yabby Lake label) and the Kooyong team, which give a far more substantial, and professional, grunt to the area’s wine. Add the quality addition of names like Ten Minutes by Tractor and Scorpo of recent times and pretty soon you see what a changed face Mornington now wears.

It all means that the long-held criticism of Mornington that it’s a region overly dependent on part-time winemakers and part-time vignerons (the theory being that you can make good wine this way, but you’ll never make great wine) has now been superceded. If the area’s wines now don’t stack up then legitimate questions can be asked: the time for excuses has passed.

Not that, right now, a lot of excuses are being made – as a Pinot Noir Celebration held at the Lindenderry resort at Red Hill recently showed. Included in this Celebration were pinot noir wines from the world over, and while some of the Burgundy wines were clearly of a higher standard than anything from anywhere else, the Mornington Peninsula wines performed beautifully, showing that it could (at least) match it with the best of the rest.

Or as Keith Harris, president of the Mornington Peninsula Vignerons Association, puts it: “We think that pinot noir can be sensational from down here, which is why the idea of the Celebration came about. We think we’re now making and releasing pinot that is very, very good. It’s the first event of its type that we’ve held, and it shows a confidence – we’re not afraid of scrutiny, nor of comparing us against the best.”

Keith Harris also believes the wine standard is going to get even better. “There are a number of Mornington brands that haven’t seen the light of day yet – but we (the Mornington Peninsula) are on the cusp of a whole slew of new names and brands coming forward, and they will have a major impact.

“The area in general is far more professional now – the perception was that we were overpriced and that the quality wasn’t quite up to it, but we’re at a point now where we think Mornington is the sort of area that people, when they’re looking at pinot noir, will say: hey, you really should look at the pinots of Mornington.”

Nat White, who effectively kick-started the modern era of Mornington Peninsula wine when he planted grapes on his tiny Main Ridge Estate in the mid 1970s, agrees with Keith – but only up to a point. “In the past, producers on the Mornington Peninsula have been too focussed on benchmarking against the standards of each other, or perhaps against other pinot producers in the state (Victoria). What we have to do more and more of is benchmark against the highest quality wines, the highest cost wines, of the world.

“One of the problems of the peninsula is this perception that it’s run by too many dilettantes – which is true, but to some extent it’s unfair, because some of these dilettantes have ended up making the best wine.”

In either a moment of pessimism or a moment of truth, depending on your own assessment, White also say be believes “a lot of quite nice pinot will be produced on the peninsula, but there’ll never be anything other than very little great pinot, because there’ll never be that many people prepared to accept the low cropping levels and leaf plucking and all the practices you need to create it.”

As you’d have noticed, pinot noir is the obsession of choice among Mornington Peninsula producers – though the other variety that shines here is it’s Burgundian stablemate, chardonnay, which typically produces fine and elegant wines adorned with white peach flavour. The emphasis on pinot noir and fine-flavoured chardonnay is not accidental – it’s indicative of its cool, windy climate, as is the almost total lack of cabernet sauvignon.

Not that that’s always been the way. When Nat White first planted vines it was cabernet and merlot that he largely planted, a fact that he now admits by saying “most of the mistakes have been made on the peninsula now, and most of them were made by me”. Simply, it’s too cool to get cabernet to consistently ripen, though some of the warmer areas around Dromana, or in the north of the region, have had some success – Dromana Estate the most impressive producer of them. This climatic difference between the high, or southern, areas (cooler) and the lower, or more northern, areas (warmer) can also be seen in the area’s pinot noir, which tend to show more delicate strawberry flavours where it’s cool, or black cherry/plummy flavours where it’s warm.

Shiraz is not a major grape on the peninsula – though when it’s done well, as it often is at Paringa Estate, Port Phillip Estate, and Turramurra, it’s in the peppery, savoury, Rhonish style that cool-climate Victoria is renowned for. White grapes like pinot gris, initially confined to the pioneers of the grape in Australia, T’Gallant, are also being planted in significant numbers, to the point where Keith Harris reckons “pinot gris isn’t just a talking point down here. It’s really going to happen in a big way”.

It’s all a long way from 1982, when Garry Crittenden of Dromana Estate planted two hectares of vines in one weekend – and in doing so doubled the total area under vines on the peninsula. It just goes to show how far the peninsula has risen in the past 20 years. It now has more than 170 vineyards and over 50 wineries, and in anyone’s language is thriving. It has the significant advantage (also the source of a false sense of security for many years) of being a tourism destination quite apart from wine and food – meaning that for a good while it’s been able to live off the fact that people will visit the area anyway, and will inevitably visit wineries. Its surf, its coastal towns, its long calm beaches and bushland are wonderful in anyone’s language – now, finally, the wines are stepping up to the same standard.

Best wines:

Dromana Estate Cabernet Merlot ($28): Cabernet sauvignon was once the darling of the Mornington Peninsula but it’s quickly lost favour, mainly because it generally struggles to ripen properly. Dromana Estate’s version completely bucks this trend, consistently making a ripe, generous, ageworthy wine of considerable elegance and class. Phone (03) 5981 0714

Dromana Estate Chardonnay ($32): There are a range of chardonnays produced at Dromana Estate at a variety of prices, and they’re generally all good – and characterised by an excellent ability to take the oak they’re matured and turn it into palate richness sans overt, buttery, woody flavours. It’s complex, and ageworthy. Phone (03) 5987 3800

Paringa Estate Pinot Noir ($52): Often at the bigger end of town in terms of fruit and oak flavour, which in the astute hands of winemaker Lindsay McCall is no bad thing. Arguably the Peninsula’s best wine, it can combine sheer power with varietal purity like few others in Australia. Phone (03) 5989 2669

Paringa Estate Shiraz ($42): When you taste Paringa shiraz from good years it’s very easy to wonder why there isn’t more shiraz grown on the Peninsula. Capable of intense, white-pepper spice, briar bush and plum flavour, its Rhonish inspiration is wonderfully clear. Phone (03) 5989 2669

Port Phillip Estate Pinot Noir ($30): Made by Lindsay McCall of Paringa Estate, which is justification alone to take note of it. It’s full of plum, cherry and coffee flavours and in years like 1997 and 2000 was of exceptional quality. McCall reckons the Port Phillip vineyard is a remarkable one, and wines like this support the claim. Phone (03) 5989 2708

Stonier Chardonnay ($22): The standard release is always excellent value – it’s capable of out-rating the reserve – but any way you look at it, Stonier is on a roll with chardonnay; from 1998 onwards all releases, reserve and standard, have been very good to outstanding. Varietal, fine, long flavoured and intense, the fact that Stonier chardonnay has been amply rewarded on the international show circuit is no surprise. Phone (03) 5989 8300

Stonier Pinot Noir ($23): Always a short-to-medium term wine, it’s hallmark is deep, bright, cherry-plummed fruit flavour matched to savoury oak, which in years like 2000 is a spectacular marriage. Recent releases have come complete with farmy/funky complexity, which has excited many and concerned others. Phone (03) 5989 8300

Scorpo Shiraz ($31): A brand new producer and simply, one of the reasons why the reputation of the Mornington Peninsula is so significantly on the improve. This shiraz is in the spicy, meaty, elegant mould, and even better: it leads the way for a seriously impressive new range of wines that includes a pinot noir, pinot gris and chardonnay. Phone (03) 9813 3312.

Main Ridge Estate Half Acre Pinot Noir ($48): In good years, this battles Paringa pinot for the mantle of the Peninsula’s best wine: it’s tight, restrained, ageworthy and beautifully structured, with sour cherry and cedary spice its hallmarks. Since 1995 it’s been made using wild yeast fermentation, and while the effect isn’t obvious it is part of the wine’s intrinsic, and magical, complexity. Phone (03) 5989 2686

Main Ridge Chardonnay ($44): Nat White is the ultimate specialist, picking over a tiny vineyard planted almost entirely to chardonnay and pinot noir (there are a couple of rows of merlot), both of exceptional quality. The chardonnay is made to age, with fruity, citrussy flavours strapped down by a belt of yeasty savouriness – hot vintages age quicker, but the best examples can reward 10 years cellaring. Phone (03) 5989 2686

Kooyong Chardonnay ($38): Newcomer to the area with serious intentions, as evidenced most of all in the wines themselves. The pinot also shows great promise but the chardonnay is the goods: it’s a strong, powerful, fruit-strapped wine with searing length and just enough playmaking in the winery to keep it interesting throughout. Phone (03) 5989 7355

Eldridge Pinot Noir ($34): A soft, supple wine that in good years has a wonderful ability to build both power and focus into a style that is excellent drinking from the get-go. Characterised by juicy acidity and plummy fruit depth, it deserves better recognition. Phone (03) 5989 2644

T’Gallant Tribute Pinot Gris ($30): Full-throttle, hedonistic wine that’s ripe and gylcerol and yet tangy, almost salty. It’s a wine that occupies a unique place in the Australian wine scene; our sphere of wines would be lesser without it. Phone (03) 5989 6565

Best cellar doors:

Tucks Ridge: A spectacular outlook. Peer out the front window and be confronted by a landscape that cuts down into a deep valley before rearing back up towards the horizon – all covered in vineyards. It’s a great place to taste and to drink chardonnay, consistently the winery’s best wine. 37 Shoreham Road, Red Hill South. Phone (03) 5989 8660.

Stonier: Home to some of the Peninsula’s best wines, the Stonier cellar door is one of the most family-friendly (there’s an outside play and equipment area) and roomy, with a long tasting bench and vines that reach up near the windows. 362 Frankston Flinders Road, Merricks. Phone (03) 5989 8300.

Moorooduc Estate: Only open weekends but it’s worth arranging your schedule around. Terrific, complex, chardonnay and pinot that perfectly accompany Jill McIntyre’s excellent food – set in a rammed earth building of note. 501 Derril Road, Moorooduc. Phone (03) 5971 8506.

Red Hill Estate: Good food, a superbly panoramic view, one of the more interesting line-ups of wines on the peninsula (including some seriously good fizz) and a beautifully, rustically presented tasting area all make for one of the area’s ‘must visit’ cellar doors. Features wines at a wide range of prices. 53 Shoreham Road, Red Hill South. Phone (03) 5989 2838.

Paringa Estate: There’s not a hair out of place here. It’s a highly polished setting with a restaurant spreading out from the tasting area, which showcases the winery’s most excellent wines. A visit to the peninsula is not complete until you’ve tasted these wines. 44 Paringa Raod, Red Hill South. Phone (03) 5989 2669.

T’Gallant: Somehow manages a kind of grand rusticity, set as it is in a tin shed with tree trunks as supporting beams. There’s a wide range of wines at a wide range of prices, with a wide range of pinot gris and pinot grigio (the winery’s trademark) on offer as well as accomplished pinot noir and chardonnay. Corner Mornington-Flinders Road and Shands Road, Main Ridge. Phone (03) 5989 6565.

Montalto: One of the newest cellar doors on the Peninsula but also one of the best to wile away an afternoon – be it for the sculpture scattered around the property, the walk trail through the cultivated wetlands at the bottom of the property, the outdoor dining in amongst the herb gardens, the terrifically designed layout of outdoor eating and indoor dining – or, of course, for the wines. 33 Shoreham Road, Red Hill South. Phone (03) 5989 8412.

Dromana Estate: Casual food, a large range of excellent wines, a relaxed setting and a view towards the man-made lake: it’s long-since been an excellent place to visit, but with the wines getting better and better it’s more essential than ever. 25 Harrisons Road, Dromana. Phone (03) 5987 3800.

Main Ridge: The wines are great, and so is the property – it’s small, but everything about it is considered and cultured and welcoming. There’s a designated walk among the gardens and the vines, a great array of memorabilia in the airy cellar door area, and while you’re tasting the wines the small winery itself is just a glance away. Back vintage packs are often for sale, and you’d go a fair distance to find a more enchanting haven. 80 William Road, Red Hill. Phone (03) 5989 2686.

Willow Creek: Fast becoming one of the names to watch on the peninsula. The wines offer some of the best value, and quality, and with a setting to die for – recently enhanced by a re-fashioned tasting area – overlooking rolling vineyard-strewn hills, it’s worth stopping for. 166 Balnarring Road, Merricks North. Phone (03) 5989 7448.

Where to eat

Because of its closeness to Melbourne (about an hour’s drive) Mornington is the haunt of both holiday-makers and day-trippers, which gives the local food scene a significant boost. As a result, a great number of wineries have restaurants attached and even those that don’t often offer food of a more relaxed nature. There’s also a keen local produce scene – cheese, berries, olives, and assorted fresh foodstuffs – and some excellent breads, most notably out of Flinders Beards (03 9768 2888), which you’ll find served at many restaurants in the area. Of Australia’s main wine regions the Mornington Peninsula food scene shines bright, and it’s very well co-ordinated under the MP Gourmet (03 5989 3154) banner, which itself is an excellent source of information.

Of the winery restaurants, Salix at Willow Creek (03 5989 7448) is a stylish venue with a well-priced selection of excellent, mainly Italian/middle-eastern inspired dishes, with obligatory vineyard view. La Baracca (03 5989 656) at T’Gallant is in some ways the exact opposite – in that it’s all rustic, earthy charm, with Italian-inspired food that’s pretty hard to top. For restaurants with a view it’s impossible to go past Max’s at Red Hill Estate (03 5989 2838), which overlooks both vines and sea, while the setting at the excellently thought-out restaurant/winery complex at Montalto (03 5989 8412) sure delights too – here you can even organise private picnics in among the vines. For something a bit different, the restaurant at Wildcroft Estate, Café 98 (03 5989 2646), owned by the same people who run the much-loved Siddhartha Indian restaurant at nearby Frankston, dares to match cabernet and pinot noir with international, though Indian-influenced, dishes. Or for more casual, but no less inspired, eating, both Jill’s at Moorooduc Estate (03 5971 8506) and the delightful setting at Main Ridge Estate (03 5989 2686) are high on the list.

Still within the thick of it all, but not at wineries themselves, you’ll find a host of good eating places, particularly in the main peninsula hotspot towns of Mornington, Portsea, Rye and Sorrento. It’s off the beaten track a little though that the best food is served: the beautiful, and tiny, Bittern Cottage Restaurant (03 5983 9506) is an absolute gem in the best French provincial manner, while Poffs’ Restaurant (03 5989 2566) overlooking Lindenderry is capable of producing some of the more sublime dining moments. Notably, both Bittern Cottage and Poffs’ allow BYO, which can be handy to know when you’ve been out buying wine all day. The Linden Tree Restaurant (03 5989 2936) is also a place in search of the spectacular – noted chef Andrew Blake is the restaurant director – if you’re on the splurge, this is a place definitely worth considering.

If you’re looking for something the morning after, the Main Street Deli (03 5975 2403) in Mornington is also damn good for breakfast and lunch.

Providores

It’s easy to feel spoilt on the Mornington Peninsula and there’s certainly a heap of foodstuffs that help make you feel that way – many of which you can take with you. Places that offer the best indulgence opportunities include the Red Hill Cool Store (03 5931 0133); the Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm (03 5989 6273) where there’s a lot more than just strawberries (though you can pick your own); Red Hill Cheese (03 5989 2035) which is only open weekends but distinctly worth visiting; Red Hill Roast (03 5989 2720) for speciality coffees; Nedlands Lavendar Farm and Tearooms (03 5974 4160); and over summer, the Drum Drum Blueberry Farm (03 5989 6208) for a feast of organic berries and jams.

Where to stay

From the well-serviced to the unusual to the spectacular – the Mornington Peninsula caters for just about everyone. Places like the Balnarring Village Motor Inn (3055 Frankston-Flinders Road, Balnarring. 03 5983 5222) and the Flinders Cove Motor Inn (32 Cook Street, Flinders. 03 5989 0666) offer above average but fairly basic accommodation, while the Cape Schanck Light Station (Cape Schanck Road, Cape Schanck. 03 5988 6184) is in the more unusual class, with the ability to book either individual rooms or the place as a whole.

But it’s in the high quality, individually tended area that Mornington really excels, with a host of offerings – one way to find the right place for you is to use the Peninsula Getaways (03 5985 1114) service – though the following are all excellent: Lindenderry at Red Hill (Cnr Arthur’s Seat Road and Andrews Lane, Red Hill. 03 5989 2933) for classy resort-style accommodation; Gooseberry Hill Olive Grove and Cottages (170 Graydens Road, Moorooduc. 03 5978 8227); The Orchard (45 Thomas Road, Red Hill South. 03 5989 3152); Warrawee Homestead (87 Warrawee Road, Balnarring. 03 5983 1729); the 5-star Acacia Rye (32 Bethany Close, Rye Beach. 03 5985 8820); or the Shearwater Cape Schanck Resort (Boneo Road, Cape Schanck. 03 5950 8111). This list is just the tip of the iceberg – it’s an extremely well endowed region.

Where to play

The fact is that apart from all that food and wine the main, and spectacular, attraction is the surf and sea, which is at its best in the area around Portsea and Sorrento but is delightfully tranquil, and beautiful, almost anywhere from Portsea to Frankston. The Mornington Pensinsula National Park and the areas surrounding it, which extends from just south of Red Hill towards Cape Schanck, also has its own magnificence – though if you’re in any way inclined towards golf, you’re going to love this area. The two out-and-out stars are The National Golf Club (The Cups Drive, Cape Schanck. 03 5988 6777) and the Cape Schanck Shearwater Resort (Boneo Road, Cape Schanck. 03 5950 8100), the former of which can only be played on application, the latter on high, but reasonable, green fees. A short putt down from these two treasures are the Portsea Golf Club (Ralph Avenue, Portsea. 03 5984 2909) and the Sorrento Golf Club (Langford Road, Sorrento. 03 5984 2626), both of which, to give some indication of their quality, co-hosted the Victorian Open last year. Both are tight, short-ish courses open to the public. On the same high level is the Rosebud Country Club (Boneo Road, Rosebud. 03 5986 2338); the Flinders Golf Club (Bass Street, Flinders. 03 5989 0312); the Eagle Ridge Golf Club (Browns Road, Rosebud. 03 5988 6341); the Moonah Links (Browns Road, Rye. 03 5985 9400); and the magnificent Dunes Golf Links (Browns Road, Rye. 035985 1334).