Agritourism on the Fleurieu Peninsula: Where Farming, Food and Tourism Meet at Merilli
More travellers want to understand the places they visit through the people who live there, the food they produce and the landscapes that shape them. For regional farming businesses, that creates an opportunity. Not necessarily to produce more from the land, but to find new ways of creating value from what is already there.
At Merilli, that idea has gradually become central to what we are building.
Merilli is the name of our property at Currency Creek on the Fleurieu Peninsula. Merilli1885 is our luxury heritage farmstay. Merilli Angus is our pasture-raised, 100% grass-fed and finished beef business.
From the outside they can look like two separate ventures.
I see them as two parts of the same story.
What agritourism looks like at Merilli
When guests stay at Merilli1885, they are not arriving at a property designed to look rural. They are staying on a working Angus farm.
The cattle still need checking. Paddocks are rotated. Fences need attention. Horses are fed. The seasons determine what grows, what needs doing and what happens next.
Nothing pauses because guests have checked in.
That matters to me.
Agritourism does not have to mean manufacturing activities for visitors or turning farming into theatre. At its best, it simply gives people a closer relationship with a real working landscape, the people behind it and what that land produces.
So we don’t stage it.
Cattle move through paddocks because that is where they need to be. The horses are part of everyday life. Kangaroos, galahs, echidnas, kookaburras and wedge-tailed eagles come and go on their own terms. The landscape changes with the seasons, and guests see whatever the season is doing.
That was always part of the thinking behind the cottage.
We bought the property in 2002. The original 1885 stone cottage was structurally unsound, and remedial work in 2004 was enough to keep it standing. For more than two decades it sat unused while we worked out what it should become.
The obvious commercial answer might have been more accommodation.
Instead, we restored one cottage, created one exclusive-use farmstay and deliberately chose not to add another dwelling.
That decision has influenced almost everything that followed.
Rather than asking how many more guests we could accommodate, I became interested in a different question:
How much more value and meaning could we create from what was already here?
That is where our version of agritourism began.
Then came Merilli Angus
Merilli Angus was not part of the tourism plan.
It grew from something much simpler. We decided to have one of our own cattle processed for our family table.
That created a much bigger conversation about provenance.
If we knew how our cattle had been raised, knew the land they had grazed and understood the care that had gone into producing them, why shouldn’t the people buying our beef have that same connection?
From one decision, Merilli Angus became a second business.
Our cattle are raised across our Fleurieu properties at Currency Creek, Tooperang and Hindmarsh Island. They are pasture-raised and 100% grass-fed and finished, with a focus on quality, animal welfare, responsible land management and traceability.
We have explored different pathways from farm to customer, including direct sales, farm-to-consumer distribution, wholesale, collaborative dining and tourism.
Along the way something became clear.
The questions people ask about food are often the same questions they ask about travel.
Where did this come from? Who produced it? How was it raised? What happens here when guests aren’t around? What makes this region different?
That desire for connection is where food, farming and tourism overlap.
Working across both
Richard brings the livestock and breeding expertise behind the herd. I look after the commercial and creative side, the brand, direct sales and conversations with customers.
But it is not a neat division between farm and office.
I work alongside Richard in the cattle yards. I have spent plenty of time in the butcher shop packing beef boxes and vacuum sealing meat. A day can move from tourism trade discussions to cattle work to beef orders.
That crossover has shaped how I think about both businesses.
Trust. Personal connection. Authenticity. Provenance. What people value in travel is often exactly what they value in food.
From paddock to plate, almost literally
Our first Fleurieu Food Festival event in August brought all of that around one table.
For one long lunch, Merilli Angus beef was served in the place it was raised.
Michelin-trained chef Luca Guiotto of Aromi Dining created the menu. Winemaker Matt Wenk poured his Smidge Wines alongside it.
Beyond the food itself, what interested me most was the connection between everything around the table.
The cattle. The farm. The chef. The wine. The cottage. The landscape. And the people who had come for it.
The provenance was not something written on a menu to manufacture a story.
The story was outside the window.
Growing value, not simply volume
Traditional growth usually means more.
More rooms. More customers. More land. More livestock. More intensity.
We have chosen a different path.
Merilli1885 remains one booking at a time. The farm remains a farm.
Instead, we are asking whether we can deepen what is here and create greater value from it.
Food is part of that. Private dining is part of it. Regional partnerships are part of it. The landscape itself is part of it.
The same thinking sits behind how we manage the farm, including rotational grazing, paddock rest, protection of ground cover, water retention measures, biochar and dung beetles.
The aim is not to extract every possible output from the land.
It is to keep finding ways for a regional property to remain productive, resilient and commercially relevant over the long term.
Heritage restoration, accommodation, agriculture and paddock-to-plate food are all part of the same diversification story.
Agritourism extends beyond one farm gate
We could try to provide everything ourselves.
We deliberately don’t.
Merilli1885 works with local chefs, winemakers, chauffeurs, wellness practitioners and tourism operators across the Fleurieu Peninsula.
A guest staying with us might dine with a private chef, drink wine made by a regional producer, tour with a local chauffeur, spend a day on the coast or the Coorong and eat beef raised here.
Visitor spend does not stay inside one business.
It flows through the region.
The long lunch was a good example. We provided the place and the beef. Luca brought the cooking. Matt brought the wine. Each of us contributed a different part of the Fleurieu story.
Collaboration gives visitors more while helping several local businesses benefit from the same stay.
It also gives farming families another way to open the gate and encourage visitors to stay longer.
What is still taking shape
We are only beginning to work out what agritourism might eventually look like here.
Our orchard is developing.
Olives are growing on the property and, in time, we would love to press and bottle our own Merilli olive oil.
There are other ideas in progress too.
Some may become part of the guest offering. Some may simply remain part of farm life.
That distinction matters.
I don’t want to add activities so we can list more inclusions. Anything we introduce should strengthen the connection between visitor, producer and place.
After this year’s lunch, we are already looking forward to the Fleurieu Food Festival in 2027.
It may be another long lunch.
Or it may take guests a little closer to the source.
One farm. Two businesses. One evolving idea.
The more Merilli1885 and Merilli Angus develop, the less interested I am in treating them as separate ventures.
One invites people to stay on the land.
The other lets them taste something raised on it.
Together they are our interpretation of agritourism on the Fleurieu Peninsula. A working farm creating more value through heritage, agriculture, food, hospitality and regional collaboration, without simply becoming bigger.
A restored 1885 cottage. A working Angus farm. Beef from our paddocks. An orchard developing. Olives growing.
And a few more ideas we are keeping to ourselves for now.
Watch this space.
Sophie Mintz
Merilli1885 and Merilli Angus
Currency Creek, Fleurieu Peninsula
Stay at Merilli1885
The cottage sleeps up to four guests across two king suites, on a single-booking basis. The property is yours for the length of your stay.
Taste what the farm produces
Merilli Angus beef is raised on the paddocks you’ll look out over. Pasture-raised, 100% grass-fed and finished, delivered to your door.