What is the difference between Shiraz and Syrah?

Botanically, none at all: they are the same grape. The name signals style more than anything else. Shiraz usually means the warmer, riper Australian expression, with dark fruit, softer tannin and a plush texture. Syrah tends to suggest a cooler, more peppery and savoury wine, as made in France's northern Rhône. Plenty of Australian producers now label their cool-climate bottlings Syrah on purpose.

Why does Australia have some of the world's oldest vines?

Because phylloxera has never reached South Australia at all. That root-feeding aphid wiped out European vineyards in the late 1800s, forcing growers everywhere else to replant onto resistant American rootstock. Strict quarantine has kept it out of the state, so vineyards planted in the nineteenth century in the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale survived on their own roots. Barossa Shiraz vines dating from 1843 are still producing fruit today.

Is all Australian wine big, ripe and oaky?

No, and it has not been for a long time. That reputation came from a wave of very ripe, heavily oaked reds exported in the 1990s. Alongside them Australia has always made lean Hunter Valley Semillon, bone-dry Clare Valley Riesling, and cool-climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Yarra Valley. The real range is far wider than the cliché suggests.

Why are Australian wines sealed with screwcaps?

It was a deliberate choice, not cost-cutting. In 2000 a group of Clare Valley Riesling producers moved to screwcap because cork taint, a musty fault caused by a compound found in natural cork, was spoiling bottles they had spent years making. Screwcaps proved far more consistent, and the practice spread across Australia and New Zealand. A screwcap says nothing about quality.

Australia Wine: Regions, Grapes & Styles

Australian wine starts with a suitcase of cuttings. In the early 1830s James Busby brought back a collection of several hundred vine varieties gathered in France and Spain, and duplicates were planted at Kirkton in the Hunter Valley, where vines had already gone into the ground in the 1820s. What happened next was luck as much as skill. South Australia's quarantine rules kept out phylloxera, the root-feeding aphid that destroyed Europe's vineyards in the late 1800s. So some Australian vines planted in the nineteenth century are still alive, still growing on their own roots. The Barossa has Shiraz dating back to 1843.

The country is enormous, and its wine regions, formally mapped as Geographical Indications since 1993, cover an equally enormous range of climate. A warm Barossa valley floor and a cool, high Yarra hillside are both Australia, and they make completely different wine. Australia has also been willing to break with tradition. In 2000 a group of Clare Valley producers switched their Riesling to screwcap because they were tired of cork taint ruining bottles they had worked years on. Much of the wine world followed.

What Australian wine tastes like

There is no single Australian flavour, but there is a common thread: the fruit is ripe and clearly drawn, and the wines rarely hide what they are.

Barossa Shiraz is the loudest example. It is full-bodied and dark, all plum and blackberry, with a warm sweetness of fruit rather than sugar and often a note of chocolate or liquorice from oak. McLaren Vale Shiraz is similar but usually a shade more savoury. Grenache from old bush vines in both regions goes the other way: lighter, perfumed, raspberry and dried herbs over soft tannin.

The whites are the counterweight. Clare Valley Riesling is bone dry and taut, driven by lime and lemon zest. Hunter Valley Semillon is picked early, so it arrives at around 10 to 11 per cent alcohol, lean and lemony, then turns toasty and honeyed after a decade in bottle without ever having touched an oak barrel.

Signature grapes of Australia

Shiraz is Australia's most planted grape and its calling card. It is the same variety France calls Syrah, but grown warmer and tasting riper. Cabernet Sauvignon is its cooler-climate counterpart, at its most Australian in Coonawarra and Margaret River. Chardonnay has changed the most: today's Yarra Valley and Margaret River versions are tighter and more citrusy than the heavily oaked style of the 1990s. Then come the specialists. Grenache and Mourvèdre, labelled Mataro here, make old-vine reds and GSM blends; Riesling belongs to Clare; and Semillon is Australia's most underrated white.

Wine regions of Australia

Seven Australian regions are covered here, and they split neatly by what they do best. The Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, both in South Australia, are the warm homes of Shiraz and old-vine Grenache. The Clare Valley, cooler and higher, is Riesling country. Coonawarra is a narrow strip of red terra rossa soil over limestone, planted almost entirely to Cabernet Sauvignon. The Hunter Valley, north of Sydney and one of Australia's oldest wine regions, is about Semillon. Margaret River on the west coast and the Yarra Valley outside Melbourne are the cool, elegant ones.

Three Australian bottles to start with