Murdering Point Winery

Set amongst fertile cane fields and lush tropical rainforests of North Queensland, Murdering Point Winery offers a range of high-quality red and white fruit wines that are uniquely Australian.

Founded by the Berryman family in 2001, Murdering Point Winery has rapidly gained a reputation for the quality of its wines and the innovative use of a wide range of exotic tropical fruits, particularly in making wines using Australian native tropical fruit, Davidson Plum. Murdering Point Winery is located on the Canecutter Way in Silkwood east, North Queensland Australia, and is a key attraction of the Great Tropical Drive.

The name Murdering Point originates from a shipwreck that occurred on inshore King Reef only a few hundred metres from the coast of Kurrimine Beach in 1878, 'The Golden Era' the gold rush days of Northern Australia. King Reef was the undoing of a number of sailing ships that foolishly tried to use a difficult passage through the reef to the beach.

The ship, the 'Riser', sailing North and having previously stopped at Cardwell, ran aground on the King Reef and was being broken up by heavy seas. The shipwrecked victims gathered scant provisions and came ashore in the ship's dingy, landing on a sandy point at the northern end of Kurrimine Beach. There they made a temporary camp for the night but that evening they were attacked, murdered and dragged by the local aboriginals into the nearby sand dunes to be partially eaten. Some weeks later, after reports of a shipwreck on King Reef, the local constabulary from Cardwell arrived to investigate and found the remains of the bodies of the shipwrecked sailors and the signs of an aboriginal camp. This investigating party, who tracked down the group involved, is attributed with naming the coastal protrusion, Murdering Point.

A full account of the wreck of the "Riser" and the history of Murdering Point is available to be viewed at the Murdering Point Winery cellar door, which is located on Murdering Point Road, the main access road to Kurrimine Beach.