A Local Guide to the Moorabool Valley Wineries – From Anakie

The Moorabool Valley wine region is one of Victoria’s quiet gems, rolling farmland, volcanic soils, and wineries quietly doing their thing. For anyone looking to explore Moorabool Valley wineries, the region around Anakie makes the perfect base for a relaxed weekend among the vines, with cellar doors to wander, long lunches to linger over, and sunsets that make you pause.

When a national travel article recently featured the valley, it hit a little close to home. Not because we suddenly discovered it’s beautiful, we’ve lived in Anakie for over twenty years, but because every mention brings back memories of growing up here, of wandering the valley, and of the wineries that shaped our love for this place.

Wineries that shaped our valley memories

Some of the places the article mentioned are the same ones we’ve been visiting for years, long before wine tourism became a thing.

We used to pop by Austin’s Wines for their annual shed wine sale, where they’d open the shed once a year and sell wine straight from it. Nothing fancy, just bottles in a shed, but it felt like an event. That shed has since been transformed, but we still remember the excitement of those early visits.

Then there’s Lethbridge Wines. We’d wander in to marvel at the wines, and it’s where we first stumbled across Meredith Dairy goat cheese (the farm is just down the road), a bit of a revelation at the time. The straw-bale buildings and the gardens always left us in awe. Even then, it felt like they were doing things differently, quietly ahead of their time.

And Sundays? Often meant a visit to Clyde Park Vineyard & Bistro. Plenty of Mother’s Day vouchers were redeemed here over the years, always turning into long lunches, glasses in hand, soaking up the vineyard views.

Why the valley quietly grows on you

The Escape article got it right: the Moorabool Valley offers variety. Between cellar doors, small local producers, and rolling vineyards, it’s a region that rewards slowing down and really looking around.

The magic isn’t just the wine, although the valley produces some exceptional cool-climate varieties, it’s the space, the quiet, the feeling that you’ve stumbled on somewhere that’s just a little off the beaten track.

Seeing it through visitors’ eyes

Growing up here, it’s easy to forget how unique it really is. Seeing the valley featured in travel articles reminds us that what feels everyday to us, the changing light across the vines, the ridgelines, the sunsets, is exactly what visitors travel for. Proper country is just the best.

Guests staying at Blame Mabel’s vineyard accommodation in Anakie, in the heart of the Moorabool Valley wine region, often spend their days exploring nearby cellar doors such as Austin’s Wines, Lethbridge Wines, and Clyde Park Vineyard & Bistro before returning to the vines as the sun sets over the valley. While others spend the day enjoying the views, wines and gardens at the cellar door at Blame Mabel.