The World's Best Australian Wine

Life hasn't ever been easy for Australian winemakers, but that's never stopped them producing some of the world's most sumptuous wines.

2023 saw a third consecutive La Niña, the notoriously wet and rainy weather pattern. It caused challenging conditions in many regions with persistent spring rainfall and flooding. In the hardest-hit regions, cool and wet conditions extended into summer causing delayed ripening and challenges in managing mold and mildew.

Winery inventory pressures didn’t help. Thanks to the trade spat with China, there are reportedly more than 2.8 billion bottles worth of wine, sitting stagnant in tanks across the country. For select vignerons with no empty tanks, there is no option but to leave the fruit to rot - a hard end to 12 months of hard yakka in the vineyard.

In cautious optimism, at the beginning of October, China announced a long-awaited review into the crippling 200-percent tariffs that directly caused this surplus. Australia has now cordially agreed to suspend action in the World Trade Organisation as a tradeoff.

The said review is reported to take up to five months with the end result coinciding with vintage 2024 in the southern hemisphere. It is a welcomed first step for wineries with full tanks and no market to sell to, however, a complete change of heart from the Chinese government is still up in the air.

But we Aussies are known for our laid-back, easy-going nature. Everyone starts as a "mate" and promptly graduates to a personalized nickname. It is thanks to this familiarity and relaxed friendliness that we all get to know each other fairly well, fairly quickly. From Penfolds to Seppeltsfield, and a touch of Henschke, there are plenty of familiar acquaintances in the best Australian wines.

The World's Best Australian Wines on Wine-Searcher:

Fortified wine is the long-hailed hero of initiating the Australian wine industry – it dominated the local market from the 1860s well into the 1980s. At its peak in the early 1950s, fortified accounted for 86 percent of Australia's wine production. This is of course prior to the capitalization of big and bold Shiraz, oaky Chardonnay, and eventually, cheap and cheerful goon bags. But despite no longer being the style of the minute, it seems fortified's prestige is unwavering with the third, eighth, and ninth spot awarded to Penfold’s 50-Year Old Rare, Seppeltsfield's Para Vintage and Para Liqueur Vintage Tawny wines, respectively.

The parallel between the rise and fall of fortified wine and the timing of the inception and success of the best Australian wine, Penfolds Grange is uncanny. In 1951, when fortified was king, the inaugural vintage of Grange was produced. It would take more than a decade before the experimental wine from Max Schubert was accepted by the Penfolds board. But by the 1980s, Grange was firmly established in the market as a sought-after collector's item, just as fortified wine had drifted out of popularity.

The "halo" effect of Grange is evident in Penfolds wines also taking second, third, and seventh spots. The best wine in Australia lifts the entire Penfolds collection into a highly awarded and sought-after market. Penfold’s has consistently from 2019 to 2022 had multiple wines within the top 10 of Australia’s best each year.

In a similar fashion to Grange, Henshke's inaugural vintage of Hill of Grace was also produced in the 1950s. It too took nearly 30 years before reaching any status of note. Today, the sixth generation of the Henshke family produces a collection of single-vineyard Shiraz wines, but it is always Hill of Grace that reaches the highest acclaim.

Finally, a special mention should be made to Giaconda Estate Chardonnay. As the fifth-best wine from Australia, it is the only white varietal as well as the only wine from outside of the country’s principal wine state of South Australia.

Good onya, mate.