Did you know: the option of “Shiraz” as a variety does not exist in the Robert Parker Wine Advocate database? It is Syrah, or Syrah. Which is problematic, given there is a growing stylistic divide in Australia between Shiraz and Syrah.
Shiraz Versus Syrah
There is no ratified delineation between Shiraz and Syrah in Australia, however the two terms can be taken to mean the following. Shiraz: the traditional name here for Syrah, and still the dominant moniker to describe what is in many bottles. The insinuation about style is less pronounced here, as not every Shiraz producer adheres to it, but it can indicate a warmer growing area, bigger/fuller-bodied wine, with higher alcohol and a more obvious presence of oak. Syrah, conversely, is beginning to mean the opposite for those who choose to adopt it: cooler area, finer, more medium-bodied style of wine, perhaps with the presence of whole bunch or carbonic, neutral oak (or alternate fermentation/maturation vessels), earlier-picked fruit and, therefore, slightly lower alcohols. Now, these definitions are by no means absolute, but they’ll stand you in good stead. Which leads us to the article at hand.
Fame, Fortune and Hedonism
This very publication, in the 1990s, was the springboard upon which the hedonistic, sun-drenched and oak-galvanized style of Shiraz found fame and exaltation. South Australia’s easy access to concentrated fruit and abundant sweet flavors via the warm summers and growing season was the foundation of Australia’s fine-wine reputation internationally. I believe that wholeheartedly. Producers such as Chris Ringland (at Rockford at the time) Dave Powell (at Torbreck at the time) and Greenock Creek—all from the Barossa—and Drew Noon (Noon winery) and Roman Bratasiak (Clarendon Hills), both in Mclaren Vale, were, among others, all leaders basking in the repeated glory of 100-point scores. It was a hedonistic time in the market, defined by these heady wines.
Moving through the ensuing decades, the market was near-on saturated by an avalanche of producers that were making wines of a similar style. For a long time, there was very little else available stylistically, which of course created a pendulum, which began to swing. Slowly at first.
Barossa Valley
The Barossa Zone covers two regions—Barossa Valley and Eden Valley—with only one subregion between them, High Eden. The multiple areas within each that comprise the puzzle of styles are classed as “parishes” (Bethany, Greenock, Moppa, Vine Vale, etc.), and for the sake of brevity, if you want to more about that in detail, check out the Barossa Grounds Project: a seminal body of work that picks apart and categorizes soil types, aspects and everything else that determines the differences in the region.
For now, my stylistic determination of Barossa Shiraz is thus: The Eden and Barossa Valleys are distinctly different. In my tastings, the Eden is more consistent in its expression across the Shiraz category, with very clear iterations of blue/red fruits, graphite tannins, Earl Grey tea and a fine minerality woven throughout almost all wines. Meat, too, on occasion. The Barossa Valley is so varied that it is capable of an array of flavors, but often, the tannins are dusty, earthy, ferrous tannins with gravitas and weight. Like the Eden is mineral, the Barossa is ferrous/red dirt.
Throughout the tastings for this report, there was a swag of wines from Barossa that were typically heavily oaked, heavily extracted and super concentrated (not to mention alcoholic), however the alcohols and concentrations are absolutely in line with the low-yielding drought vintages of 2019 and 2020. I found myself falling time and time again in love with these big, balanced wines, and the more I tasted, the more I reveled in the fact that they are super wines of place. These wines SMACK of Barossa and nowhere else. The Barossa Old Vine Charter was put in place to categorize and protect the old vines that grow here—the oldest planted (and still producing on own roots) in the 1850s.
My feedback to producers is that it’s no good carefully coaxing terroir from the dirt and the old vines to then hide it with oak. The fruit in Barossa makes it one of the most exciting regions on earth for Shiraz.
My feedback to drinkers and collectors is that the best producers in this region are making some of the greatest Shirazes anywhere, and while I opened MANY overweight and high-priced bottles, few shake the dollar tree like the heavyweights from Rhone: value for money exists here.
I’m not going to list them all here, but there is a new breed of producer in Barossa; more often than not, they are younger and favor earlier picking, whole bunches, old oak… many of them kids of the old-school producers, branching out and making it on their own. The respect for site unites them all, young and old.
McLaren Vale
This region is the silky, spicy, exotic region for Shiraz in South Australia. If Barossa (including Eden) is bigger, earthier and more wholesome, McLaren Vale has polish, curves and magic. Like Barossa, McLaren Vale has a broad spectrum of producers making a broad array of styles, and you’d be remiss to compare the two regions or say one is better than the other. They are so different, and honestly, there are some days where a Barossa Shiraz just won’t hit the spot like McV will, and vice-versa.
It was a 50/50 split of wines that could be categorized as either Shiraz or Syrah, but I felt there was a stylistic swing toward Syrah in McLaren Vale.
Adelaide Hills
The Shirazes from the Adelaide Hills fall into the “Syrah” category. These wines were, en masse, finer, lighter, leafier and nervier than the wines from either McLaren Vale or Barossa. Whole bunch and less-prominent oak were the main drivers of tannic structure, and words like “delicate,” “brambly” and “medium-bodied” were used repeatedly.
Clare Valley
Firstly, there were not enough wines submitted from Clare to get an appropriate contextual handle on where the style sits on the spectrum in South Australia. However, from the bottles I opened and the wines I have tasted in the past, the Clare Valley style is quite clear: polished, velvety texture and opulent, saturating fruit profiles. These wines are big wines, without the overt alcohols of Barossa/Eden (although I found the acidity was more pronounced than the ripeness would dictate in some cases) and with all the fruit generosity and volume of McLaren Vale and then some. It’s difficult to determine whether these wines were more Syrah than Shiraz, but I’d hazard to say, on balance, these are Shiraz wines.
More to come.
