Shiraz, Hunter Valley Style
Loved by fans, praised by wine critics, and poured across the country, it is undeniable that Hunter Valley Shiraz has something special. Here in the Hunter Valley, we don’t make wines en masse. We value quality and character over volume, and it shines through. A trailblazer of Australia’s grape-growing and winemaking industry for almost 200 years, Hunter Valley Wine Country has cultivated its own distinctive pedigree of hand-crafted Shiraz. Thanks to the rise of a dynamic new generation of producers, the region’s heart continues to beat for adventurous winemaking that inspires and delights.
Shiraz, Hunter Valley style, is medium-bodied, bright, aromatic and contemporary, shaped by the warm subtropical climate with maritime influences and friable red duplex and loam soils. Young Hunter Shiraz can show red and dark berries, spice and plenty of soft, fine tannin, but as they age, they becomes more complex, with earthy, leathery overtones and a beautiful perfume. It also acquires a silkiness and grace, becoming a smooth, wonderfully complex and multi-layered wine. Hunter Valley Shiraz is both expressive and versatile, making it an excellent wine for pairing.
Hunter Valley plays an important part in the history of Shiraz as not only the birthplace of Shiraz in Australia but as custodians to some of the oldest and rarest Shiraz vines in the world. Shiraz vines dating back to 1867 are still carefully tended to today. The Hunter Valley continues to trailblaze and evolve with today’s viticulturists and winemakers centering on sustainability and exploring minimal intervention to showcase the fruit’s purity and highlight the distinct character of each vineyard site.
We invite you to delve deeper into Shiraz, Hunter Valley style. Grown here, crafted here, enjoyed everywhere.
Top 5 things to know about Shiraz, Hunter Valley style
1. The Style
Shiraz, Hunter Valley style, is distinctly different from the fuller-bodied styles you might find in regions like Barossa or McLaren Vale. Shaped by the Hunter’s warm days, cool evenings, and maritime humidity, the region naturally lends itself to a bright, aromatic and contemporary medium-bodied expression. Rather than leaning into high alcohol or heavy oak, Hunter Valley Shiraz finds its beauty in the lower-alcohol, medium-bodied style, with a strong sense of place and showcase of quality fruit. Unique to the region, the typical young Hunter Valley Shiraz is a medium bodied wine with flavour characteristics of blackberry, dark cherry and red spice in its youth, evolving with bottle-age into a silkiness and grace, becoming a smooth, wonderfully complex and richly flavoured wine.
2. It's the foodie red
One of the great strengths of Hunter Valley Shiraz is how beautifully it pairs with food. Its versatility is thanks to the medium-bodied, aromatic style. One signature pairing of Shiraz, especially Hunter Valley Shiraz is red meat such as lamb cutlets, chargrilled steak, duck and slow-cooked or braised meats. The tannins in Hunter Valley Shiraz complement the rich flavours of red meat. For a more vegetable-focused meal, dishes like earthy mushroom risotto, smoky roasted eggplant with tahini drizzle, or a rich truffle tagliatelle pair beautifully with a glass of Hunter Valley Shiraz. And of course, no pairing is complete without a cheese or charcuterie board. Aged cheddar in particular is a great combination with Hunter Valley Shiraz, the sharpness of the cheese complementing the flavour characteristics of the wine.
3. Award winning
Hunter Valley Shiraz is no stranger to accolades. With glowing reviews and a fan base to match, the flagship Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz, Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz, Thomas Kiss Shiraz and Tyrrell’s ‘Vat 9’ Shiraz speak to the quality, excellence and innovation of Hunter Valley Shiraz.
Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz
Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz has been included in every Langton’s Classification since the first release in 1991, and one of only 22 wines classified as Exceptional. The 2023 Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz is already receiving high praise from critics, Gary Walsh from The Wine Front noting it as “one of the best young Shiraz I’ve tasted”.
Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz
Named after its founder and one of Australia’s most respected winemakers the Mount Pleasant’s Maurice O’Shea Shiraz is a blend of their greatest barrels, from their best vineyards. Consistently earning high accolades and ratings, the Maurice O’Shea Shiraz captures a sense of place, heritage and elegance using exclusively estate grown grapes from the Old Hill planted in 1880, the Old Paddock planted in 1921 and Rosehill in 1946.
Thomas Kiss Shiraz
Thomas Kiss Shiraz has become a modern benchmark for Hunter Valley Shiraz and gained an enviable reputation for excellence. Cheekily named, but serious in style the Thomas Kiss Shiraz is a single‑vineyard wine drawn from old, low‑cropping vines planted back in 1969. These naturally low-cropping vines consistently yield of pristine fruit brimming colour and hallmark blue to red fruit flavours with ripeness and intensity. Since its first vintage in 2001, the label has received countless wine show awards and accolades.
Tyrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz
Tyrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz is sourced from the best parcels on the Tyrrell Estate Ashmans. These vines have a minimum age of 50 years, and are grown in red clay soils over limestone. It has earned widespread acclaim, including multiple gold medals at the Hunter Valley Wine Show and a consistent 96–97 point rating from James Halliday’s Wine Companion.
But it’s not just the heavyweights taking home the accolades.
Hunter Valley Wine Show
Best red of Show - De Iuliis Wines 2023 Limited Release Shiraz
Lone Pine Barracks Officers MessInternational JudgesSilver Bullet Mercer Wines 2023 Shiraz Nouveau (Entry 18-2)
Australian Single Vineyard Wine Show
The benedict Milling trophey for the Best Single Vineyard Red other Variety - Krinklewood 2023 Wild Shiraz
ICC Sydney NSW Wine Awards
Blue NRG Trophy for Best Shiraz - Tamburlaine Organic Wines 2023 Reserve Orange Syrah
Gulbali Institute Trophy for Best Red Wine Blend - Thomas Wines 2023 Shiraz, Touriga
4. Vintage 23 Hunter Valley Shiraz
The growing year for Vintage 23 was an ideal mix of cool, wet spring conditions followed by a warm, steady summer and near-perfect weather conditions during the final stages of the ripening period which produced brilliantly balanced fruit. The Hunter Valley's skilled winemakers leveraged these ideal conditions and it is highly anticipated that Vintage 23 Hunter Valley Shiraz will be on par with the iconic 2014 and 2028 vintages. Early reviews are already rolling in.
2023 Thomas Kiss Shiraz
96 Points - Campbell Mattinson (winefront.com.au)
"2023 is a superb release of Thomas Kiss Shiraz. It is, simply, authoritative. It lays down flavour, it lays down structure, it lays down character and it keeps it all going into tomorrow. Toast, cherry-plum, woodsy spice and earth, with nutshell and pockets of spice. It’s firm, bold and elegant at once. This is without doubt an upper echelon wine."
Brokenwood Wines Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz
97+ Points - Erin Larkin (Wine Advocate)
“The 2023 Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz is a product of the beautiful year that birthed it. It is ripe and silky and seamless already. Truly one of the greats, alongside the 2018, in the context of this tasting. The 2018 vintage of the Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz is the best vintage of this wine made to that date. This 2023 may, in time, see this as being the best Graveyard ever made. For those lucky enough to have both vintages in the cellar, it's all the same to us—these are great wines with long futures ahead of them.”
5. History of Shiraz in the Hunter Valley
The Hunter Valley is proudly the birthplace of Australian Shiraz. James Busby, widely considered the “father of Australian viticulture.”, introduced to the Hunter region around 500 vine cuttings sourced from collections and private plantings in South America and Europe, including several cuttings of Syrah from the Hermitage hill in the Rhône region of South France. To this day, a handful of Hunter Valley estates are privileged to still produce sublime wines from 11 historic blocks of the original plantings, on ancient European root stocks that came over with the First Fleet. These vineyards are all the more rare for having remained unscathed by an outbreak of phylloxera in the late 1800’s which decimated 70% of Europe’s vineyards, making the vines some of the oldest in the world. You can get your hands on coveted, old vine Hunter Valley Shiraz, Semillon and Chardonnay wines, straight from the source, at Drayton’s Wines, Mount Pleasant, Poole’s Rock and Tyrrell’s.
