Today (Thursday July 23) is International Shiraz Day! The shiraz variety is as popular as it is in Australia for a reason – for wine lovers, it has the width to become an easy-drinking dinner wine or a high quality wine to cellar for years, and, for producers, it is able to adapt to most soil types and climates across the country.
To help you find the perfect shiraz to celebrate with, we have curated a list of 21 wines from regions including the Perth Hills, McLaren Vale, the Hunter Valley, Frankland River, the Barossa Valley and the Eden Valley. This article showcases the 10 bottles that are $70 or over. They are all rated 95 points and above, and are great options for drinking now, or for adding to your cellar.
Make sure you have a read through each wine's Halliday tasting notes, and click the 'buy now' links to shop directly from the producers.
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Shiraz to try
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Battles
Granitis Shiraz 2024
Perth HillsIt’s often hard to make a beautiful shiraz. Yes, there are very good ones, excellent ones, but beauty is something different, which this wine has as its calling card. It’s elegant, composed and so aromatic. Floral, full of dark fruit, spice and savouriness. Shapely if fine tannins, some bresaola and pops of fruit across the medium-bodied palate. It is such a pleasure to drink this now, even if it will cellar well. Your choice. -
Kay Brothers
Block 6 Shiraz 2023
McLaren ValeThe iconic Block 6 comprises 1.5ha of vines planted in 1892. The last two vintages of Block 6 have been excellent, with this completing a podium finish. This sits side by side with the '21. Hard to split. Integration of oak is a thing. It’s present, providing some luxury adornment, but it meshes so well with the fruit. Blackberry and boysenberry, dried olive and preserved black cherry, salted red plum, struck iron, dark spices, the scent of rocky, hungry soils, cordite, star anise, bergamot tea. It’s just 13.5% alcohol, but it’s invested with flavour and detail. It feels like history, a little like a wine from another time, vividly alive in the present. -
Langmeil Winery
The Freedom 1843 Shiraz 2023
Barossa ValleyShiraz sourced from the renowned 179-year-old vines of The Freedom vineyard; 25 months in French oak hogsheads, 41% new. I like to sit and get lost in my own thoughts when I drink this wine. Thinking of all that these vines have seen over the years – the local events, the floods and droughts, the interactions with the custodians – it blows my mind. It's rich with plush black and dark fruits, layers of spice, flecks of florals and hints of roasting meats, dark chocolate, Christmas cake and turned earth. The texture is off the charts, the tannins thick and silty, and the finish sails on for a good while indeed. It's a ripper. -
Brokenwood
Vegas Block Shiraz 2024
Hunter ValleyThere is so much going on in this wine. Shiraz is co-planted with 5% each of pinot noir and trebbiano, and 30% of the ferment is whole bunch. The result is a mix of mulberries, cranberries and strawberries, with sorrel, lemon and fresh herbs. The palate is beautifully supple and long, with an overall sense of freshness and life. It takes your mind and palate in a completely different direction. A wine of real personality and character, evolving in the glass. Contemplative and complex. -
Serafino Wines
Sharktooth Shiraz 2023
McLaren ValeFrom the coolest part of the estate on alluvial sand, clay and gravel, all French oak, 30% new. The '23 shiraz suite from Serafino is impressive, such flavour-deep yet poised wines, paying respects to styles of old, but in such a refined way, with everything so finely tuned. Brambly berries, boysenberry, black plum, mulberry, blackberry pastille, saltbush and bushland scrub, the oak an agreeably suave presence, with fine vanilla, ginger and char notes. It’s full bodied, but it’s not imposing, the tannic framework superfine, acidity on song, the finish trailing into the far distance. Power and finesse. Nailed it. -
De Iuliis
Limited Release Shiraz 2019
Hunter ValleyA sumptuous interpretation of a warm year. Lots of extract, complemented by oak that, while still unresolved, should find its place in time. Blue and black fruits. A core of raspberry liqueur. Spice, sassafras and Hunter earth, driving long. Bury this and believe. -
Fervor
Edward Syrah 2022
Frankland RiverA savoury, spicy, fragrant syrah that delivers with deep, dark berry and plummy fruit characters. It has lashings of peppery and brown spice, game meat characters, dried herbs, dashes of piquant clove and a sinewy, succulent finish. It's quite the powerhouse red for the nomenclature of 'syrah' but manages many of the expected characters of that, in balance, and drives with energy despite its depth. A serious red, and a serious contender. -
Hoffmann Family Vineyards
North by Adrian Hoffmann Dallwitz Block Shiraz 2018
Barossa ValleyShiraz from the famed Hoffmann Dallwitz block that sees a whopping five years in new French oak. An impressively scaled wine, what with its impenetrable dark crimson hue and thick cassis and plum conserve fruit depth. It's cut from the 'classic' Barossan cloth of big fruit, big oak and big flavours, a direction that, truth must be told, many lean away from these days. But these styles have both their fans and their place and this ticks a lot of boxes for those that seek a full-bodied, powerful wine. Spice-laden, with fruitcake, cedar, asphalt, prunes, roasting meats, Old Gold chocolate and licorice. It is a wine of immense concentration and stature. -
Paisley Wines
Texture Series Angaston Shiraz 2021
Eden ValleySingle-vineyard shiraz sourced from 440m above sea level at Angaston in the Eden Valley and matured in oak for 24 months. Deep magenta/crimson in the glass with opulent blackberry, blueberry and satsuma plum fruits over hints of fruitcake spice, sage, pastis, bay leaf, dark chocolate, violets, cedar, graphite and roasting meats. Full bodied with a beautiful, sleek line of travel, finely poised, lacy acidity and crushed-quartz tannins. There's a really nice palate shape to this wine, not to mention a long, sustained stretch of flavour on the back end. -
Saddler's Creek Wines
Alessandro Reserve Shiraz 2023
Hunter ValleyThis wine showcases a single parcel of fruit from the Parish vineyard. It is a big, bold style – full in body with plentiful tannin. The fruit is dark, dense and concentrated, in the mulberry sphere, with a touch of fresh bay leaf. Hearty, warming, long and rich; it will benefit from time in the cellar.
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