The range
Red wine from the Australian regions that built the country's reputation — Barossa and Clare shiraz, Coonawarra cabernet, Yarra and Mornington pinot, Margaret River cabernet blends — alongside the everyday bottles worth drinking on a weeknight.
The range runs from under $10 to Henschke Hill of Grace. Each bottle lists producer, region and vintage where we have it, so you can tell a Barossa shiraz from a cool-climate one before you order.
The two varieties that carry most of this page have their own: shiraz and cabernet sauvignon. The collectable end sits under fine wine.
33bottles. Every one with a reason written against it.
South Eastern Australia
We stock it because it is number three in ALM's national still red segment with 1.38% share, up from fourth last year. A litre of drinkable shiraz at this price has a permanent audience.
1000 mL13.0%10.3 std
$10.99
Bolgheri, Tuscany · Italy
We stock it because Bolgheri is the most interesting thing to happen to Italian red wine in fifty years, and a fine wine list that stops at Brunello and Barolo is missing it.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$403.99
Hunter Valley, New South Wales
We stock it because the fine Australian red range cannot be all Barossa and Coonawarra. Graveyard is the Hunter's entry in that conversation, and it is the wine Hunter drinkers come looking for by name.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$442.99
Barossa Valley, South Australia
We stock it because old-vine provenance is the Barossa's real advantage over every other region on earth, and Old Bastard is one of the clearest statements of it.
750 mL14.5%8.5 std
$366.99
South Australia
We stock it because shiraz cabernet is an Australian idea before it is anyone else's, and because this bottle is number five in the state while the two single varieties are one and three - the customers are not choosing between them, they are buying all of them.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$19.99
Montalcino, Tuscany · Italy
We stock it because Brunello is the benchmark for Italian Sangiovese, and the single-vineyard selections are where it gets serious. This is the top of our Italian range.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$806.99
Eden Valley, South Australia
We stock it because the good merlot on most shelves is nearly all imported, and this is the strongest Australian answer to that. It is the bottle to reach for when someone says they do not like merlot.
750 mL14.4%8.5 std
$119.99
Margaret River, Western Australia
We stock it because it puts serious Margaret River cabernet under fifty dollars. That is where most of a cabernet range should sit, and very little of it is this good.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$41.99
Wrattonbully, South Australia
We stock it because it is the clearest way to taste what Wrattonbully gives that neighbouring Coonawarra does not, and because a fine wine shelf carrying only famous names teaches nobody anything.
750 mL14.9%8.8 std
$95.00
Napa Valley, California · United States
We stock it because the merlot shelf needs an international reference point and Napa is the one customers recognise.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$99.99
Margaret River, Western Australia
We stock it because Margaret River cabernet is the strongest claim Australia has to a world-class red style other than Barossa shiraz, and Diana Madeline sits at the top of it.
750 mL13.0%7.7 std
$159.99
Coonawarra, South Australia
We stock it because Coonawarra cabernet is a style customers ask for by region rather than by producer. Petaluma is the name that answers that.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$84.99
Coonawarra, South Australia
We stock it because it is the value entry into serious Coonawarra cabernet, sitting well below the region's flagships without giving up the character.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$56.99
Barossa Valley, South Australia
We stock it because Yalumba is the oldest family winery in the country and Octavius is what it makes to be judged on. It belongs in the Barossa tier beside Torbreck and Kaesler.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$159.99
Grampians
We stock it for credibility at the top of the Australian shiraz range. Anyone looking at Grange, Hill of Grace and The Armagh expects to find Thomson Family beside them, and a list that stops short of it reads as incomplete.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$249.99
McLaren Vale, South Australia
We stock it because McLaren Vale deserves a place in the fine shiraz range alongside Barossa and Clare, and at this price Dead Arm is one of the best-value serious reds on the list.
750 mL15.0%8.9 std
$74.99
South Australia
We stock it because Grange is the most searched Australian wine there is. Whatever else is on the list, customers check whether Grange is on it.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$1,209.99
Margaret River, Western Australia
We stock it because it gives the cabernet range a second Western Australian voice below Cullen. There is a real gap between the sixty dollar and the hundred-and-sixty dollar cabernet, and this fills it.
750 mL14.0%8.3 std
$129.99
Barossa Valley, South Australia
We stock it because Torbreck is the modern Barossa's loudest voice and RunRig is its statement wine. It sits naturally beside the Kaesler and Penfolds top tier.
750 mL15.0%8.9 std
$330.00
Eden Valley, South Australia
We stock it because Grange without Hill of Grace is half a fine wine list. These two names are what a serious Australian range is judged on before anything else gets looked at.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$949.99
Clare Valley, South Australia
We stock it because the top Australian shiraz shelf needs Clare beside Barossa and Eden Valley. Grange, Hill of Grace and The Armagh are the three names that set it.
750 mL13.6%8.0 std
$419.29
Canberra District, New South Wales
We stock it because it is the most influential cool-climate shiraz in the country, and the one wine at this level made within driving distance of Sydney.
750 mL14.0%8.3 std
$139.99
Victoria
We stock it because the raw top-seller list contains no pinot noir at all and a red shelf without one is missing the grape more people have moved to than any other in the last decade. This is a judgment call on top of the ranking, and it is the cheapest way to make it.
750 mL13.0%7.7 std
$12.99
South Eastern Australia
We stock it because cabernet merlot is the blend most people mean when they say they want a red that is not too big, and because nothing else in the top twelve covers it.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$13.99
Coonawarra, South Australia
We stock it because Coonawarra cabernet is one of the few genuinely distinctive things Australia does with the grape, and this is the least expensive way onto that strip of red soil.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$14.99
South Eastern Australia
We stock it because it is number eight in the state, and because the bin numbers are the reason a lot of Australians know how to ask for a red wine at all.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$13.99
Clare Valley, South Australia
We stock it because it is number nine in the state on its own merits, and because Clare cabernet is firmer and less sweet than the Barossa reds beside it - the two bottles are not interchangeable and the shelf should show that.
750 mL14.0%8.3 std
$19.99
South Eastern Australia
We stock it because it is number six in the state and because it does the same job as the Koonunga Hill blend several dollars lower, which is a question customers ask directly.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$8.99
South Australia
We stock it because it is the red more people in New South Wales buy than any other, and because it is the cheapest bottle on this shelf carrying a name that means something to a winemaker as well as to a shopper.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$14.99
Clare Valley, South Australia
We stock it because it is the highest-ranked single-region red in the state that is not owned by one of the two big groups, and because Clare shiraz tastes of somewhere in a way that a South Eastern Australia blend cannot.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$19.99
Barossa Valley, South Australia
We stock it because it is the number one red in the country and number four in this state, and because it is the point on this shelf where a shopper crosses from a wine they know into a wine from one named place.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$19.99
South Australia
We stock it because it is number three in the state behind its own stablemate, and because a customer who has decided on Koonunga Hill has usually also decided which grape they want.
750 mL14.5%8.6 std
$14.99
South Eastern Australia
We stock it because it is number two in the state and the least expensive real bottle in this range, and because a shelf where the cheapest red is twenty dollars is not serving everybody who shops here.
750 mL13.5%8.0 std
$9.99
