Up-tiered

Stuart Knox in Wine Classification
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Ten Minutes by Tractor is the most successful producer with three wines jumping up. Ten Minutes by Tractor

The Real Review Wine Classification Feature Week

The annual revision of The Real Review Wine Classification of Australia is always an exciting time of year.

This year, 20 wines have been up-tiered: six wines have made the jump from two Merits to three Merits and 14 wines have jumped from one Merit to two Merits. This speaks of the ongoing improvement in quality of Australian wines over the past decade and more.

It’s a fantastic list of the great wines of Australia and a wonderful tool to use for buying wines that show a consistent track record of excellence.

Diving into the results a little more deeply, we see red wines are just ahead of whites with 12 reds and eight whites jumping up a new tier. Victoria stands at the top of the pile with nine wines being up-tiered, followed by South Australia with five, Western Australia with four and Tasmania with two.

Ten Minutes by Tractor is the most successful producer with three wines jumping up, closely followed by Giant Steps and Henschke with two apiece. The varietal mix is where I think it’s most interesting, with seven chardonnays, five pinot noirs and four cabernet sauvignon-dominant wines stepping up.

Chardonnay is on a serious roll in Australia: it’s one of our great wines on the world stage and these results really shine a light on that consistent delivery of quality over the past decade. Pinot noir is showing that it really does take time to find the sweet spot for its production viticulturally, but also that time and effort is starting to pay off. And finally cabernet sauvignon, whether straight or in a blend, really is a wine of quality and class, sometimes overlooked but offering fantastic drinking, cellaring and value across these top wines.

These results are all based on numbers and data—not personal preference—but it is wonderful to see the Red Wine of the Year (Yeringberg cabernet-based blend) taking the leap to the top Classification tier of three Merits. While our White Wine of the Year (Giant Steps Applejack Chardonnay) is not yet eligible—as it hasn’t been produced for the requisite 10 years as yet—its sibling chardonnays from Giant Steps are also climbing up the rankings, and I can only imagine the Applejack Vineyard will be right up there when it becomes eligible.

These rankings are updated yearly, with the ranking held for a minimum of four years before a wine can be down-graded—but it can be up-tiered annually. This allows wineries leeway for a poor vintage but rewards ongoing excellence.

It’s a fantastic list of the great wines of Australia and a wonderful tool to use for buying wines that show a consistent track record of excellence.

Up from two to three Merits

Up from one to two Merits

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