Merbein is a town just north of Mildura, Victoria, in the Sunraysia region of 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, 553km from Melbourne and 389km 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. In this part of the world, farmers are called blockies. Produce farmed in Merbein include grapes, citrus, mushrooms, green beans, asparagus and even pistachios. Visitors come to Merbein for its great views of the Murray River from the cliffs near the Mildara winery, boat ramps and allocated camping areas along the river. Merbein also has recreational and sporting facilities such as football, cricket and soccer grounds, a swimming pool, lawn bowling and croquet greens, tennis and netball courts, a golf club and formed walking tracks at the Merbein Common. The town centre has an art deco-style pub called the Merbein Hotel, vintage clothing stores, take-away food shops and on the third Sunday of each month there's the Merbein Street Market, which boasts fresh local produce, handmade goods, plant sales and secondhand books among other things. While the larger growing region is better known for its dried vine fruit, table grapes, nuts and citrus, Merbein has its wine, too. The Chalmers family established its Murray Darling vineyard in Merbein, in 2010. Merbein is also home of Mildara Wines, a winery W B Chaffey had 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.
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