Australian Wine Magazine: Reviews, Regions & Wineries

Australian Wine Magazine
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Honest, independent talk about Australian wine — from the team behind Australian Wine Magazine. Every episode digs into the questions ordinary drinkers actually have but rarely get a straight answer to. Is expensive wine really better? Which regions are wildly underrated? What are you actually paying for in a $12 bottle versus a $60 one? And how do you walk into a bottle shop, or a restaurant wine list, and choose well without pretending to know more than you do? We cover: • Independent reviews and value picks — what's worth buying right now • Australia's wine regions, from the Barossa and Margaret River to the ones nobody's talking about yet • Winery guides and cellar door trips worth planning a weekend around • Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, sparkling and everything in between, explained plainly • The myths — ageing, storage, scores, screwcaps, decanting — sorted out once and for all • What sommeliers know that the rest of us don't No sponsored scores. No snobbery. No jargon left unexplained. Just useful, opinionated guidance for people who like drinking Australian wine and want to drink it better. Read more at australianwinemagazine.com.au — and follow the show so you don't miss an episode.

  1. Oct 27

    South Australia's $109m wine rescue: loans, not grants

    On 18 September 2026 the South Australian government announced a $109 million wine package. The $100 million centrepiece is a loan scheme to help growers pull out vines — repayable, at an expected 7.2 per cent once a two-year grace period ends. Loans, not grants, and that distinction is the whole story. More at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au What we cover: • What is actually in the package: $100m in loans, $2m for treated vine post disposal, a Global Wine Growth Program extension, Riverland planning changes • Loan terms: up to $250,000 for smaller growers, $500,000 for larger, no repayments for two years • The grower economics behind it — CCW reports 72% of Riverland operations made a loss, some red grapes at $150/tonne against $300/tonne to grow • A 2026 South Australian crush of 573,252 tonnes, the smallest since 2000 and 17% down • 1,440 fewer hectares of vines in SA than a year earlier, per Wine Australia • The arithmetic nobody led with: at maximum loan size, $100m reaches about 200 growers — the Riverland alone has more than 900 • Nicola Centofanti on the 7.2% rate: “more of a commercial rate than a concessional one” • Premier Malinauskas’s case, put fairly: an oversupply is not a natural disaster, and lent money goes further than granted money • Why a vine-removal scheme is an admission the industry needs help shrinking, not rescuing back to its old size • What to watch: take-up rates, whether two years is long enough, and whether other states follow Reporting and quotes from ABC News, 18 September 2026. Crush and vineyard data from Wine Australia. Grower economics from CCW Co-operative Limited. 📮 Wine PR and producers — send us samples. Every sample is disclosed, we never accept payment for a review or a score, and no producer sees a review before it runs. Get in touch through https://australianwinemagazine.com.au Please drink responsibly.

  2. Sep 19

    Organic, biodynamic, natural: which actually means anything

    Organic wine, biodynamic wine and natural wine turn up constantly on Australian labels. Two of those three are certified categories with written standards, independent auditors and annual inspections. The third has no legal definition anywhere in the world. More at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au What we cover: • The National Standard for Organic and Biodynamic Produce, Edition 3.8, and who certifies against it • Australian Certified Organic, NASAA and Organic Food Chain — and what the mark on the bottle actually represents • Why organic certification takes three years, with property testing, a documented plan and annual audits • Demeter, and why Australian biodynamic work runs back to 1957 • Why biodynamic sits on top of organic practice rather than beside it • Natural wine: no legal definition, no certifier, no audit — anywhere • The honest distinction: with organic you trust an audit, with natural you trust a person • The biggest misunderstanding in the category — certified organic wine is NOT sulphur-free • The real ACO limits: 100mg/L for reds, 150mg/L for whites and rosés at under 2g/L residual sugar • Why the back label is more informative than the front: sulphites must be declared at 10mg/kg as Preservative 220 • The live trade argument about whether natural wine should be certified at all — both sides, unresolved This episode is about what a label guarantees, not a judgement on anyone's winemaking. Many natural producers hold themselves to standards well beyond organic certification. 📮 Wine PR and producers — send us samples. Australian Wine Magazine reviews independently. Every sample we're sent is disclosed, we never accept payment for a review or a score, and no producer sees a review before it runs. To have a wine considered, get in touch through https://australianwinemagazine.com.au Please drink responsibly.

  3. Sep 17

    Yarra Valley wine: the region that won Paris, then vanished

    Yarra Valley wine history has an arc no other Australian region can match. In 1889 Yering Station won a Grand Prix in Paris, the first and only producer outside the northern hemisphere ever to do so. By the 1930s there was not a commercial vine left in the valley. More at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au What we cover: • The 1889 Paris Grand Prix — and why being world-class was no protection at all • Why an hour from Melbourne is the defining commercial fact about the region • The numbers: 2,536 hectares, 126 growers, 10,246 tonnes crushed • Pinot Noir at 41% and Chardonnay at 27% — two varieties, two thirds of the region • The Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung custodianship, and the Kulin agricultural work at Coranderrk between 1863 and 1875 • 1838: the Ryrie brothers plant Victoria's first vines on land called Yering • The Swiss and Scottish families who built it — de Castella, de Pury, Deschamps, and Dame Nellie Melba's father • The 1930s collapse: fortified wine, the Depression, and a valley turned over to dairy • The 1963 revival led by Reg and Bertina Egan at Wantirna Estate • Why three of the first Hall of Fame inductees were doctors — and why that is structural, not coincidence • Visiting: Healesville as a base, why it works as a genuine day trip, and what to actually taste Region data and historical timeline from Wine Yarra Valley, the regional peak body. 🍷 Wineries and vineyards — we'd love to feature you. Australian Wine Magazine covers Australian wine independently: no sponsored scores, no paid placements. If you'd like your estate, your vineyard or your cellar door covered on the show, get in touch through https://australianwinemagazine.com.au 📮 Wine PR and producers — send us samples. Every sample is disclosed, we never accept payment for a review or a score, and no producer sees a review before it runs. Please drink responsibly.

  4. Sep 14

    Private label wine: who really owns the bottle you buy

    Private label wine is now everywhere in Australian bottle shops, and most people cannot spot it. That wine that looks like a small producer having a go might be owned outright by the company that owns the shop. Here is who owns the shelves, who owns the brands, and how to tell. More at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au What we cover: • Who owns Australian liquor retail — Endeavour (Dan Murphy's, BWS) and Coles (Liquorland, First Choice, Vintage Cellars) • Why market share estimates genuinely disagree: Endeavour at 39% or closer to 50%, depending who is counting • A 2026 quarter where Coles Liquor turned over $813m against Endeavour's $2.331bn • Exclusive label versus private label — the retailers' own definitions, and why the difference matters • Endeavour's Pinnacle subsidiary, which released 550 product types in a single year • The Pure Origin case: a boutique-looking Tasmanian gin that is a Coles private label, legally disclosed and practically invisible • Why retailers do it — no wholesale margin, no marketing spend, exclusive shelf space, and roughly 50% cheaper • What independent producers told a House of Representatives inquiry about shelf space • Endeavour's response: small suppliers now 90% of its supplier base • How the grape glut and the rise of retailer-owned wine are the same story • How to actually tell: the back label, the IP Australia trade mark register, and the exclusivity tell Private label wine is often well made and frequently the better buy at the price. This episode is about disclosure, not quality. Detailed private-label reporting cited dates from 2024; market share figures come from different years and analysts. 📮 Wine PR and producers — send us samples. Australian Wine Magazine reviews independently. Every sample we're sent is disclosed, we never accept payment for a review or a score, and no producer sees a review before it runs. To have a wine considered, get in touch through https://australianwinemagazine.com.au Please drink responsibly.

  5. Sep 10

    Wine scores explained: the 100-point scale is really 16

    Wine scores decide what sells, but almost every rated wine sits between 84 and 99. Read the Halliday Wine Companion's own published scale and the reason becomes obvious: anything below 84 is tasted and then not rated at all. That makes the 100-point system a 16-point system wearing a bigger label. More at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au What we cover: • The published Halliday bands, read out in full — 97–99 gold, 95–96 gold medal standard, 90–93 silver, 86–88 bronze, 84–85 acceptable • Why “Not Rated” below 84 points is the single most important line in the whole scale • Why the lowest publishable score already means competently made and free from significant fault • Why reading 88 points as 88 per cent gets it badly wrong — 88 is a bronze medal, not a near-fail • Where the compression comes from: the Australian wine show medal system it is mapped onto • The structural point nobody states — critics review what they are sent, so a scored list is a survey of what was entered • The honest case FOR scores: they compress, they are internally consistent, and they force a critic to commit • How to actually use scores: compare within a publication, read bands not digits, watch the price-per-point • Where this publication stands on reviewing, disclosure and whether we will issue scores Scale as published by the Halliday Wine Companion. 📮 Wine PR and producers — send us samples. Australian Wine Magazine reviews independently. Every sample we're sent is disclosed, we never accept payment for a review or a score, and no producer sees a review before it runs. To have a wine considered, get in touch through https://australianwinemagazine.com.au Please drink responsibly.

  6. Sep 8

    Australian wine: smallest crush since 2000, and prices still fell

    Australian wine produced its smallest winegrape crush since 2000 in 2026 — and the average price paid to growers went down anyway. That paradox is the most important thing happening in the industry right now, and it says the problem is not weather and not China. More at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au The numbers, all from Wine Australia: • A 2026 crush of 1.27 million tonnes — 19% below 2025 and 25% below the ten-year average • Red varieties down 29% to 596,226 tonnes, the lowest since 2000 • Average purchased grape value down 6% to $570 a tonne, despite the short crop • Riverland Shiraz quoted at $80–120 a tonne against production costs above $350 — why growers are pulling vines • Exports down 7% in value to $2.30 billion and below 600 million litres for the first time since 2004 • Mainland China still the largest market by value at $756 million, but down 15% as restocking ended • UK and US export volumes both at 25-year lows • Canada up 20% to $188 million, and record Thai and Singaporean demand for premium Australian wine • Global wine consumption at its lowest level since 1961 — the actual cause • The two competing views inside the industry on whether the correction should be allowed to run Sources: Wine Australia National Vintage Report 2026 and Export Report June 2026, with commentary from Wine Australia's Manager of Market Insights, Peter Bailey. 📮 Wine PR and producers — send us samples. Australian Wine Magazine reviews independently. Every sample we're sent is disclosed, we never accept payment for a review or a score, and no producer sees a review before it runs. To have a wine considered, get in touch through https://australianwinemagazine.com.au Please drink responsibly.

  7. Sep 8

    Vasse Felix: the vineyard that started Margaret River

    Vasse Felix is Margaret River's founding wine estate — planted in 1967, before anyone knew whether wine grapes would work in that corner of Western Australia at all. This is how a wine region starts from nothing: a research paper, a Perth cardiologist, and eight acres planted to find out. More at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au What we cover: • Where Margaret River is, and why being surrounded by ocean on three sides decides everything • The research that came before the vineyard — Harold Olmo in 1955 and Dr John Gladstones in 1965 • Why Margaret River is one of the few wine regions that can be dated to a specific document • Dr Tom Cullity, the Perth cardiologist who planted eight acres in 1967, in his own words • Margaret River's first serious wines in 1972: a Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec and a Riesling • Tom's Plots — the oldest vines in Margaret River are from 1967, and still bearing fruit • Why Margaret River built a global reputation in about two generations, with no old vines at all • The Holmes à Court family's stewardship since 1987, and a hundred-year time horizon • The region in honest numbers: two to three per cent of Australia's grapes, and a disputed but outsized share of its premium wine • Visiting: Caves Road, the estate on the corner of Tom Cullity Drive, and why the region rewards a few days If you enjoyed this one, follow the show so the next episode turns up for you, and find more at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au 🍷 Wineries and vineyards — we’d love to feature you. Australian Wine Magazine covers Australian wine independently: no sponsored scores, no paid placements. If you’d like your estate, your vineyard or your cellar door covered on the show, get in touch through https://australianwinemagazine.com.au Please drink responsibly.

  8. Sep 6

    Henschke's Hill of Grace: the vineyard planted in 1860

    Henschke Hill of Grace is the name that comes up whenever anyone argues about Australia's greatest single vineyard — but what is it actually? Eight hectares in the Eden Valley, named after a Silesian region by way of a Lutheran church, with vines planted in 1860 that are still standing. More at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au What we cover: • Where the name Hill of Grace comes from — Gnadenberg, a region in Silesia, and the church built the same year as the first vines • The Grandfathers: own-rooted shiraz planted around 1860 by Nicolaus Stanitzki, now more than 155 years old • Why pre-phylloxera vine material is a living genetic record of European vines before the collapse of the late 1800s • How the Henschke family came to own a vineyard they did not plant — the 1891 purchase, and two Stanitzki granddaughters who married into the family • Cyril Henschke's 1958 decision to bottle a single vineyard, when blending across regions was the norm • What is in the ground: 8 hectares, only half of it shiraz, eight blocks, and only the six oldest in the wine • Yields of 2.5 tonnes per hectare, 520mm of rain, 400 metres of altitude, and dry-grown vines that are never irrigated • The organic and biodynamic vineyard, and Prue Henschke's fifty years of soil and biodiversity work • Picking around the full moon at Easter • Visiting Henschke Cellars at Keyneton, and what the structured cellar door experiences involve If you enjoyed this one, follow the show so the next episode turns up for you, and find more at https://australianwinemagazine.com.au 🍷 Wineries and vineyards — we’d love to feature you. Australian Wine Magazine covers Australian wine independently: no sponsored scores, no paid placements. If you’d like your estate, your vineyard or your cellar door covered on the show, get in touch through https://australianwinemagazine.com.au Please drink responsibly.

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About

Honest, independent talk about Australian wine — from the team behind Australian Wine Magazine. Every episode digs into the questions ordinary drinkers actually have but rarely get a straight answer to. Is expensive wine really better? Which regions are wildly underrated? What are you actually paying for in a $12 bottle versus a $60 one? And how do you walk into a bottle shop, or a restaurant wine list, and choose well without pretending to know more than you do? We cover: • Independent reviews and value picks — what's worth buying right now • Australia's wine regions, from the Barossa and Margaret River to the ones nobody's talking about yet • Winery guides and cellar door trips worth planning a weekend around • Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, sparkling and everything in between, explained plainly • The myths — ageing, storage, scores, screwcaps, decanting — sorted out once and for all • What sommeliers know that the rest of us don't No sponsored scores. No snobbery. No jargon left unexplained. Just useful, opinionated guidance for people who like drinking Australian wine and want to drink it better. Read more at australianwinemagazine.com.au — and follow the show so you don't miss an episode.

Information

  • Creator
    Australian Wine Magazine
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    14
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Australian Wine Magazine: Reviews, Regions & Wineries