Under the radar: Alternative Australian white wines to try

Forget about Chardonnay and Riesling for a few days and enjoy Australian winemakers' uncanny ability to get the best from myriad white grape varieties, says Matthew Jukes...

You will already be familiar with Australia’s two greatest white wines styles – dry Riesling and Chardonnay.

Keen wine lovers have known this for years, but less adventurous oenophiles seem to have only recently cottoned onto the fact that Burgundy and its Chardonnays and serious German or Austrian dry Riesling cannot compete with the Australian icon brands in terms of value for money and, in many cases, longevity.

I would add dry Semillon to this list as a style of wine which Australia has made its own. While I love Bordeaux Blanc, the uniquely fascinating Hunter Valley style of Semillon, made without the oak barrel component (so beloved of the Bordelais) and which ages like clockwork for often two decades or more is spine-tinglingly attractive.

But what of Australia’s other styles of white and sparkling wines?

For the past 15 years, I have been compiling a report of my favourites: ‘100 Best Australian Wines’.

For the first time, I’m sharing with Decanter my entries from the ‘other whites’ sections of this report in the hope that readers might feel compelled to whet their palates with some of the more diverse wines made Down Under.

View all of Matthew’s tasting notes from this article

Australian winemakers have an uncanny knack of knowing what a wine will taste like long before a vineyard has been planted with an untested variety. I find this intuitive vinous guesswork utterly compelling. They are unswervingly accurate with their palate predictions and this means that they hit the intended target more often than not.

It is this experience of their own unique terroir and also their understanding of the myriad of global styles of winemaking which gives them the utmost confidence when trialling new wines.

I am often amazed at the speed in which tricky white varieties like Viognier, Fiano, Vermentino, Arneis and Marsanne, among others, have already all been made with world class results in Australia. Sparklers, too, in spite of warmer daytime temperatures are also starting to go head-to-head with other world standards.

This is because they are invariably made from noble varieties and they are often put together with economies of scale which make their price tags increasingly attractive.

All of these wine styles are built from a base of fine, tight, balancing acidity. You cannot make a lush, alluring white wine if there is not the equivalent ratio of tense, mouth-watering acid. Australia seems to understand this more than most other winemaking countries. After all, it is this component which has made their elite Chardonnays so downright delicious and amazingly ageworthy.

This rule holds true with other grape varieties, too. Even the lustiest of white grapes, Gewurztraminer, rarely rides solo in Australia, because the wine fraternity understand that it needs tempering and enlivening with either early picks or other, tautly acidic grapes to bring it to life.

My selection is a medley of wine styles, all different, and all fascinating, which I believe sum up Australia’s modern white wine scene. The running themes are internationally informed winemaking, unrivalled value for money and uniquely delicious and bright flavours. In short, they are some of the modern standard bearers for today’s global wine industry.

Matthew’s top unusual Australian wines made from white grape varieties:

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