Main Ridge Estate is a renowned Mornington Peninsula winery, known for crafting elegant and expressive wines that showcase the region’s ancient volcanic terroir and maritime climate.

1975: Since its founding by Nat and Rosalie White, MRE has maintained a steadfast commitment to quality winemaking, with an emphasis on single-vineyard expressions and small batch production.

2015: The Whites retired, the Sexton family purchased MRE to live and work on the property. Winemaker James Sexton, a Bachelor of Wine Science from Charles Sturt University and sommelier, has sustained the estate’s rich heritage and reputation over the past 10 years.

2021: Main Ridge Estate began carefully expanding production to include fruit from three nearby Main Ridge vineyards, owned by neighbours and friends:

2021: Trueman Vineyard.          2023:  Harvey Vineyard           2025:  Mary’s Vineyard

The plan is to remain a small, premium winemaker and be heavily involved in the viticultural management on all these sites.  Our goal is to offer a more diverse range of single vineyard wines, which reflect the terroir of each site through the lens of the Main Ridge Estate winery.

2025 Vintage report

The 2025 harvest was a fast and furious return to normality!

Beginning with an early budburst, then with unbridled by warm and dry weather throughout the ripening period, the 2025 harvest was eager to show off its wares. Across Australia, grape harvest commencement records have been slashed by up to 2 weeks.   In spite of these conditions, greatly improved yields of fruit arrived at the winery with wonderful aromatic purity and elevated sugar levels balanced by near perfect natural acids.

The harvest began on 24^th of February at our warmest site, the Harvey Vineyard, and concluded on           20^t March at Mary’s Vineyard, our newest site.    Mary’s is a small 5-acre block, planted close by on Main Creek Road and was established in the late 90’s under the guidance of icons Kathleen Quealy and Kevin McCarthy. It contains a locally renowned 2-acre block of Chardonnay, alongside smaller blocks of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer (a variety we look forward to bringing back into the MRE collection after a 30 year hiatus)

Over the past 4 years we have been making some modest improvements to our grape processing area; more space and better drainage, a new de-stemmer for gentler fruit handling and a small airbag press, for greater yields and accuracy when pressing whites. The basket-press has been retained for pressing our estate grown Pinot Noir. Whilst is the new equipment is more efficient, the traditional Main Ridge Estate  winemaking methods remain un-changed!

James Sexton