Merbein
Merbein | |||||||||||||
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Commercial Street, the main street of Merbein | |||||||||||||
Merbein | |||||||||||||
| Coordinates: 34°10′S 142°03′E / 34.167°S 142.050°E | |||||||||||||
| Country | Australia | ||||||||||||
| State | Victoria | ||||||||||||
| LGA | |||||||||||||
| Location | |||||||||||||
| Established | 1912 | ||||||||||||
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| • State electorate | |||||||||||||
| • Federal division | |||||||||||||
| Elevation | 56 m (184 ft) | ||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||
| • Total | 4,976 (2021 census) | ||||||||||||
| Postcode | 3505 | ||||||||||||
| Mean max temp | 23.7 °C (74.7 °F) | ||||||||||||
| Mean min temp | 9.7 °C (49.5 °F) | ||||||||||||
| Annual rainfall | 285.1 mm (11.22 in) | ||||||||||||
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Merbein is a town in the Rural City of Mildura, Victoria, Australia. It is on the Calder Highway between Mildura and the Murray River crossing at the Abbotsford Bridge to Curlwaa. At the 2016 census, the town had a population of 1,981. Merbein is 12 kilometres from Mildura, 553 kilometres (344 mi) from Melbourne and 389 kilometres (242 mi) from Adelaide.
The town is known for farming and is part what is informally called the "fruit bowl" or "food bowl", the growing region roughly made of the Coomealla and Sunraysia irrigation districts fed by the Darling and Murray rivers. Produce farmed in Merbein include grapes, citrus, mushrooms, green beans, asparagus and pistachios.
Merbein is also home of Mildara Wines, a winery W. B. Chaffey built in 1913 for the first intake of grapes in 1914. The winery, originally known as the Mildura Distillery and Winery, stands on a 30-metre sandstone cliff near Pump Hill.