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Australia is the forth-largest wine exporting country in the world. Most of Australia’s wine production occurs in the southern regions of Australia. Four Australian States contain major wine growing regions, Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

In Western Australia, you can find the Margaret River region, the Swan Valley region and the Great Southern region. Margaret River is home to Brookland Valley Wines, Swan Valley is home to Houghton Wines and Great Southern is home to the Porongorup Winery.

In New South Wales, you can find famous wine regions such as the Hunter Valley wine region, the Mudgee wine region and the extensive Riverina wine region. Because Hunter Valley is in such close proximity to the large city of Sydney, it is a major tourist stop for wine lovers and it is home to many great wineries, including Rosemount while Mudgee is home to Frog Rock Wines and Riverina is home to West End Estate Wines.

In Victoria, there are several high producing wine regions. Some Victorian wine regions include Alpine Valley, Henty, Goulburn Valley, Grampians, Heathcote, Mornington Peninsula, Pyrenees, Rutherglen, King Valley and Yarra Valley. Since Yarra Valley is in such close proximity to Melbourne, it probably receives the most visitors to its wineries in Victoria. However, Yarra Valley is a comparatively new wine region that is barely coming up to par with the other wine regions in Victoria. Recently, though, wines from Yarra Valley have begun to win some medals in national competitions.

In South Australia, you will find the most famous and notorious wine regions of Australia. Some of the major wine regions of South Australia include Barossa Valley, Coonawarra, Adelaide Hills, Clare Valley, Eden Valley, Langhorne Creek, McLaren Valley, Padthaway, Riverland and Wrottenbully.

Penfolds Winery is in Barossa Valley. The great 1955 vintage of Penfold’s Grange was submitted to competitions beginning in 1962 and over the years has won more than 50 gold medals. The vintage of 1971 won first prize in Shiraz at the Wine Olympics in Paris. The 1990 vintage was named ‘Red Wine of the Year’ by the Wine Spectator magazine in 1995, which later rated the 1998 vintage 99 points out of a possible 100.

Penfolds alone would make Barossa Valley and South Australia a notable wine region, but it is not the only winery of note in the area. Other notable wineries in Barossa Valley include Yalumba, Jacob’s Creek, Peter Lehman and Seppelt as well as 14 other wineries. In McLaren Valley, you will find 30 wineries including D’Arenberg. In Adelaide Hills, you will find 33 wineries including Tillbrook Estate and Abbey Rock. In Coonawarra, you will find 14 wineries including Wynns Coonawarra Estate and Penley Estate.

Although most vineyards and wineries in Australia are located in the above-mentioned states, Queensland and the island of Tasmania have endeavored to begin wine industries in recent years as well. Queensland already has established over 100 vineyards and Tasmania has produced medal winning Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs.

As you can see, Australia’s wine regions are expansive and prolific. Australia exports forty-million liters of wine per year and Australians consume forty-million liters of wine per year.