Types of Wine Grapes: Syrah and Shiraz

Ep 116

Is Syrah the same as Shiraz?

In today's episode you are getting a sneak peak inside one of my Cork Crew virtual tastings where we compare Syrah and Shiraz, two names for the same grape, grown in very different parts of the world.

This exclusive replay offers a deep dive into the differences between Old World Syrah from France’s Northern Rhône and New World Shiraz from Australia, showing how climate, winemaking style, and even culture influence the final flavor in your glass.

You’ll learn why Syrah is often described as bold, meaty, and peppery, and how it became a favorite among both sommeliers and casual wine drinkers. We cover the grape’s origins, its parentage, and how vineyard elevation and skin contact during fermentation shape its intensity. You’ll also get a breakdown of key Northern Rhône appellations like Hermitage and Côte-Rôtie, including how the area's terrain and traditions bring out different sides of Syrah.

Then we dive into Australia to uncover what makes Shiraz so distinct. From century-old vines in Barossa to cooler coastal climates in McLaren Vale and Hunter Valley, discover how Australian winemakers blend innovation with tradition and why “Shiraz” might just be their playful spin on a grape they’ve made entirely their own.

So, if you’ve ever wondered how to spot the difference between Syrah and Shiraz when shopping the wine aisle, this episode will help you know exactly what to look for!

Thank you to Wine.com for sponsoring this episode. Go to Wine.com/corkfizz and use code CORKFIZZ for FREE shipping on your order over $150. (Limit one per customer.)

Episode Highlights:

• Syrah vs Shiraz - Are they the same?

• Where Syrah originated and why it's so widely planted today
  
  
  
• Old World vs. New World wine characteristics and how they show up in Syrah
  
  
  
• Key differences between Rhône Syrah and Australian Shiraz
  
  
  
• Notable wine regions: Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Hunter Valley
  
  
  
• How extended skin contact and vineyard elevation affect Syrah’s bold flavors
  
  
  
• Why “Old Vine” labeling in Australia can be misleading and how Barossa’s Vine Charter helps clarify it

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Transcript

0:09

Interested in learning about wine but not sure where to start. You're in the right place. Welcome to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. I'm your host, Hayley Bowlman, and I'm. So glad you're here. I'm a wine enthusiast turned wine educator and and founder of the Seattle based wine tasting business, Cork and Fizz. It is my goal to build your confidence in wine by making it approachable. And lots of fun. You can expect to learn everything from how to describe your favorite wine to what to pair with dinner tonight, and so much more. Whether you're a casual wine sipper or. A total cork dork like myself, this podcast is for you. So grab yourself a glass and let's dive in. Hello and welcome back to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. I had something a little different planned. This week, but we're doing, we're doing something different. And you might be able to tell. Just by the sound of my voice why we are doing that. I currently feel like I'm like talking three octaves lower than normal. I've caught a very not fun summer head cold that does not want to go away. So I do not have the voice to record a full podcast for you today. But don't worry, this week you are still getting something good. I decided to go into my archives and I found an old cork crew tasting that I think you're going to enjoy. I actually had somebody on Instagram request an episode on Australian Shiraz and lucky for them, I did a corker tasting a while back. I don't even know when, but it was Syrah versus Shiraz and we kind of talked about old world versus New world and what this grape does because those are the same grape if you didn't know Syrah and Shiraz. So what I'm going to do is we are going to piece together, we being my lovely podcast manager, Liz. Thank you, Liz. She's going to piece together that cork crew tasting. So you get to listen in on what is usually a very exclusive event, but now you get to listen in. We have cut out the tasting portions because, well, probably not as much fun unless you're there. But if you want to be there. For the tasting portions, come join us at the Court Crew. We have a ton of fun every month. But yeah, that's enough of me yapping. I'm going to go take a drink. Of water before I record the outro. Of this, so hope you enjoy this little look into the cork crew and learn a little bit about Syrah. And Shiraz. All right, let's dig in a little bit to just the grape itself. So we're just going to talk about. And I'm going to call it Syrah. This is the original name for it. It's just called Shiraz in Australia and then sometimes in South Africa as well. So when I'm talking about Syrah, I still mean, like, the grape that is in both of these wines. So talk a little bit about it. It did originate in the Rhone Valley. They did DNA profiling on it to ensure that that was indeed where it came from. Though from what I read it, the Northern Rhone isn't where the first vine appeared of syrah. It's about 35 miles southeast of the Northern Rhone. Now, in terms of parents, I always like to kind of look at, you know, who are the parents of the grape in case there's something familiar. They are not going to be familiar at all unless you've done a lot of studying on grapes. The two parents of Syrah are very obscure. One is named d' Orsa and the other is Mandus. Blanche de Ressa is from southern France, whereas Mondeus Blanche can be found in Savoy in France. These, again, they're not super well known, but their child is. And then in terms of this grape wasn't always super popular, but from the 1980s to the mid 2000s, it increased in planted hectares from about 10,000 to. To 450,000 hectares. I mean, that's 45 times the amount that it had before. I think a couple reasons for this. This is one. We'll talk about this a little later, but there was an increase of popularity of Northern Rhone Syrah wines around that time. And then Syrah is also one of those that it's so interesting because a lot of times you'll find there are wines that, like the sommeliers and the people who study wine. The cork dorks, right? The wines that those people are into. And then there are wines that, like, the general masses are into and like what you'd find at their grocery store. And Syrah somehow lands in both of those circles. So I think kind of that combination could make it popular. And then, of course, it also grows really well in a lot. A lot of different regions. We're tasting it from the Northern Rhone from Australia, but it also grows really well in South Africa and in different areas of the US along with a lot of other areas. Now, one thing about Syrah that you'll hear a lot is a saying that Syrah likes a view. This is because the best Vineyards are usually towards the top of hills where there is less soil, and it makes the vines produce less but more concentrated grapes. There's also more direct sunshine so that they can ripen. And then the other thing which is important with the ripening is that straw has really thick skins. And so because of this, it has thick skins and high tannins. It's a common practice at the end of fermentation for winemakers to leave the skins in contact with the wines and for days and sometimes weeks. And this actually sounds counterintuitive, right? You'd think they would only want it in contact for a small amount of time, but the longer they do this, it actually helps soften the tannins in the wine. And so this is called an extended maceration. This is also why Syrah is often one of the darker colored wines compared to other all of our other reds. The nice thing about having so many tannins is that Syrah also has really high levels of health, benefiting antioxidants. Now, I'm not about to say that your red wine is healthy for you, but there are some good things in it. So, you know, you can take that with you. That's always a good thing. And then lastly, when you taste Syrah, one thing you'll notice about it and definitely take a, you know, think about this the next time you have a sip is that you're greeted with a punch of flavor. But then what happens is it tapers off. Typically, Syrah is known for having an immediate punch and then not so long of a finish or you don't get as much flavor on the mid palate is what it's called. And so this is why a lot of times you'll see Syrah in different blends. One of the most popular blends of the world, called GSM Grenache Syrah Moved is made in that way because Syrah has a punch of flavor. But Grenache and Moved have flavor in the mid palate, so you're getting flavor all the way through. It's a cool thing about blends, and we'll have to talk about that more later because it's a really fun thing. Just a quick reminder, if you are not on my mailing list yet, what are you waiting for? I would love for you to join. When you do, you'll get a free shopping guide that has 15 of my favorite wines under $15. Head to corkandfizz.com, scroll down to the bottom, and there'll be a little section where you can join the Mailing list, I send out a weekly newsletter filled. With wine tips, recommendations, special offers, and so much more. Now, let's get back to the show. What does Old World versus New World mean? I feel like these terms are now used quite often, but they're kind, you know, like knowing what they actually mean. I think some people take differing opinions on this, but I'll share kind of what those words mean to me in general. So generally, now, the. The true definition, at least to me, where, like, you can always count on Old World, that's European wine. Any wine from Europe, which is where modern winemaking began, is going to be called Old World versus New World is everywhere else. Basically anywhere where Europe took vines, you know, to somewhere else. And so that's going to be, you know, Australia, New Zealand, U.S. south Africa, South America. All those spots are considered New World for me. That's like the true definition. Now, some things that you might find these are common between these regions, are common with these. These terms to follow, but they're not like a strict. Only this. In general Old World, they tend to have higher acidity, lower alcohol. This is both due to cooler climates generally. And they like to make their wines more food friendly, so that higher acidity tends to balance more with food. Whereas on the New World side, you'll have lower acidity, higher alcohol, which also lends to the bullet point underneath it, more fruit flavor. And a big reason for this is that, you know, New World wines, there isn't so much of an idea of, you know, aging. And so a lot of times they need the wine to taste great right away and that more fruit flavor can help with that. Whereas in the Old World, they kind of go for more earthy flavors. Again, this is to work really well with your food. New World wines, a lot of times, you don't have to pair them with food. You're just meant to, you know, have a. Have a glass of wine and enjoy it. Last thing about these two Old World, again, you're gonna have a lot of vintage variation. So what this means is that in the Old World, so in Europe, they kind of are at Mother Nature's will, and they'll do their best in bad years to make the wine still taste good. They're not gonna go out of their way. They're not gonna add chemicals. They're not gonna do any other sort of, you know, intense farming or winemaking to improve it. It's just that just wasn't a great year. Whereas in the New World, there's not a lot of room for bad Years, you know, you haven't owned the vineyard and owned the winery for years in your family. You need to make good wine every year. So they're more willing to kind of use potential, you know, additives or things like that, or new innovative techniques in order to improve the wine if they had a bad year, weather wise. And then lastly, Old World, pretty strict rules and limitations. Not a lot of creativity happening there. So, like, for example, those of you that have a St. Joseph wine that I'm pretty sure that has to be either a hundred percent Syrah or there might be a little bit of Une allowed in that. But in certain regions, like, you can be guaranteed, like if the wine says St. Joseph, that's a Syrah, right? Versus, like, if you had a wine like my. My Shiraz says McLaren Vale, that's a region in Australia. But they couldn't just label it McLaren Vale because there's a lot of different things that could grow there. So you can have a lot more creativity and do a lot more in those regions. That was a lot of information. I have a question. Any questions? Yeah, go ahead. I don't know if my brain just skipped for a sec. When you were doing Old World versus New World, you said something about might be best or okay to enjoy without food. Yes. Which was that? The old or the new? That's generally the New World. Those are going to have more of those immediate fruity flavors, kind of the things that you find more pleasant without needing something to match with it. Interesting. Because our experience is reverse. Yes. No. And again, that's why, like I said, like that Top bullet is the only thing I'm going to tell you is, like, the absolute true definition. Whereas the ones underneath are like. These are generally what you cannot expect. But, yeah, I can change. And it also depends on your palate, too. I mean, if you love. I love earthy flavors. So like, that, to me, I could enjoy on its own, without food, I don't have to have it. So it depends. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? All right, well, let's dig into our Northern Rhone, then. So first wine is going to be a Northern Rhone Surron. So with our Old World, New World, this is an Old World wine. This is from France, which is part of Europe. Isn't it beautiful? Look at those hills over there. All right, let's talk a little bit about history here. So if you were to look at the geography and terrain of the Northern Rhone, you'd be pretty surprised to hear that they have a long history of agriculture. Because the thing is that this place has a lot of hills and a lot of steep hills. And the crazy part is that most of the plantings weren't grapes. I was actually listening to a podcast a couple days ago where they were talking about this. It was a producer in the Northern Rhone, and he mentioned that actually growing grapes there is pretty new, especially making money from making wine. What used to happen in the past, maybe only like a hundred, 200 years ago, was that most families did make wine. They had grapes, but not a lot, and they just made wine for themselves. If they were going to make any money, they had to grow other produce on the hillsides and sell that. So it was only recently where they actually started to rip out the other produce and put grapes there instead. And recently, by 100, 200 years, we now know, like I said, that Syrah originated in the Rhone Valley. However, there are a couple myths as to how it got there. One involves a Roman emperor planting the grape in France in 280 A.D. and then another involves a winemaker from Iran, which I'm actually. I really want to dig into this a little bit more because I'm so curious, because, you know, we talked about Old World versus New World, but there's actually a different world altogether from those two. And wine folly, one of the resources that I use, they've deemed it the ancient world, and I think that's a really good description. And this is where, like, true winemaking began. And this is like, Georgia, Iran, the areas around that area, and that's, like, that predates Old World. So anyway, the myth is that an Iranian winemaker brought the vines with him to France in 600 BC where he settled in Marseilles. But again, apparently, it's a myth. I would love to dive a little deeper into it to learn a little bit more about it. Now, Seurat Self as a grape came to prominence in about the 1700s in the Rhone Valley of France. And basically how this happened was that a lot of other regions were busy making blends. You know, I think at that time, they basically weren't able to grow the grapes well enough to feel confident in making a single varietal wine. So they were just throwing a bunch of other grapes in. And they'd often do, like, a field blend. It'd be whatever was in the fields. They just bring it in. They wouldn't separate it out. Now, in the Northern Rhone, and especially in the town of theirmitage, that Syrah became famous, they wanted to make a wine solely from Syrah. So that's what they did. And all Of a sudden it became very well known and it started to fetch very, very high price points. Everybody wanted to get their hands on this. Then again, we had another. So, you know, go another 200, almost 300 years and, and it's, it's doing well enough. They're known for Syrah there, but it's well known the Northern Rhone in 1970s, or I guess 1980s is kind of when that changed. And so this happened to in part to two people. The first is Etienne Gigal. So I don't know if any of you have heard of the Gigal wines, Coats Durone. So if you go to any, like, honestly, head to Total Wine next time you're there, check out the Cotes Durone and you will find a wine named Gigal, the G U, I G A L. And you'll see them. So he became very popular and he really pushed for. He makes wine out of the Northern Rhone and the Southern Rhone, but he really started to make some great bottles from the Northern Rhone that followed a little bit more of a modern style. And then the other person that we might all be familiar with as well is Robert Parker. So Robert Parker, if that name sounds familiar, it's because he is a very well known wine critic. And there was a time basically during the 1980s where what he said, anything that he said became very popular. And so he was into very bold styles of wine. And so my guess is with the bold flavors of Northern Rhone, he was a big fan and he ended up pushing that forward, which was a really great thing for this area. They were finally able to have this new wealth. People were interested in their wine, they were making more money and so they could reinvest it in their properties. And this again, like I said, is where I think that priests in Hector's really happened, at least in the Northern Rome and then obviously in other regions as well, as they tried to replicate what they did there. So they're able to produce more vineyards, reduce yields, make better quality Syrahs. They also were able to build new cellars, ferment at a cooler temperature and really increase the quality. They were able to start aging in a higher percentage of new oaks. So these wines that like you couldn't touch for, like, if you think in Northern Rhone takes a long time to age now, imagine what it would have been like 40 years ago when they didn't have as much new oak. It would have taken 20 years for that to be good to drink. And then they also started to make single vineyard wines and started exploring, you know, just Taking grapes from one single area, they were able to dive deeper into it and make even better quality wine because they had the money for it. All right, let's talk geography. There's one thing you are going to remember about the northern Rhone. It is that there are hills, and not just, you know, casual rolling hills. These are steep hills. If you were here last time or if you watched the recording, port country, which is Douro in Portugal, very steep to the point where, like, I mean, you have to hold onto something. This place, not unlike that, these vineyards, they're etched into narrow terraces. You can see the terraces here, you know, the little kind of steps in the mountain. And then also some of the areas are so steep that they actually need to have a pulley system to bring the grapes in. It's not safe for vineyard workers to carry the grapes up or nearly impossible for them to. And then due to this steepness, there is a concern for soil erosion. But it's also what makes the grapes really good, so it's worth the risk. Right? Soils here, they'll range from the north to the south, within the northern Rhone. So we'll talk a little bit more about that once we dive into the Appalachians. It is a cooler region compared to more of the southern Rhone area. It produces thick skinned grapes. So that means that the vineyards that are on the slopes and on top of the hills are the best. You're going to get the best sun there. And then again, this region is fairly small. I'm going to show you guys a map and kind of compare it to all of France and then also the southern Rhone, but comparatively to the Southern Rhone. So 95% of all the wine in the Rhone Valley, the entire Rhone, so north and south comes from Southern Rhone. Only 5% of the wines made in all of the Rhone Valley come from the northern Rhone, which is why it was probably so hard to find. And then again, the region itself divided into eight appellations, five of which produce Syrah based wines. So that would be Hermitage, Cote rote, Croat, Samitage, St. Joseph and Cornard. And so before we dive into those, I did want to highlight again, that wine that I had was a cheaper version, an affordable, I should say, version of Syrah from the northern Rhone. There's a couple different names that they'll be. Oh, yeah, that's the same thing. Good. So that Colinus, Rodenia, that again, I don't speak French, but take note of that. If you like this wine, but you don't want to pay $40 per bottle. My wine was $22. And it's honestly giving me really similar notes that I've read about with all of the other wines. So definitely recommend checking that out. But let's dive a little deeper into the maps here. All right, Y' all see the map of France. So if you look here in the southern, we're looking kind of like south central southeast. The bright pink color, that's going to be our Rhone Valley. I'm zooming in here now. They're kind of basically pointing to the southern Rhone, but this section right up here, you see that little tiny section along the Rhone river that is also bright pink? That's the northern Rhone compared to the southern Rhone, which is all of this. So you can see why now they don't make quite as much of the wine. Now diving a little deeper into the Rhone itself. So this is basically a zoomed in version. So you can see here, again, it's just this tiny little stretch along the Rhone river, and then we have our different regions. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about these. So, you know, feel free to listen and pay most attention to the one that you are drinking. But it's just kind of nice to know the difference between each of these. So at the top, you have Cote Roti. Again, Coty Roti. Kotarone. Coty Roti. What did you say? Rachel, how did you pronounce this? Cote Roti. Ah, that sounds best. Thank you. Cote Roti, or it kind of translates to roasted slopes. This is the most famous, or the two most famous. Vineyards of Cote Roti are located on two hills. They're known collectively as the Cote Blond and the Cote Brune. And you can actually see the differences in the soils when you look at both the hills. This is one of those really cool ones where it's like, actually visual. On the Cote Brune, you have that darker color due to the schist. You have mica and iron oxide in the terroir. And then soils on the Cote Blonde are much lighter. They have a sandy granite type of schist in the terroir. So distinctive from other northern ruin wines. Cotes Roti can often have a small amount of Viognier that is co fermented in with the wine. It can be up to 20%, but most winemakers only add up to 5%. And basically what that means is so co fermenting means that they actually put the grapes in together to ferment, and they don't like, ferment each separately and then blend. Most of your wine blends that you drink tend to be let's ferment the Syrah and let's ferment the, you know, the other wine and then add em together. But co fermenting means they do it together. And there's a lot more that happens because of the chemical reactions that are happening. And so you end up with more floral aromatics. It's bold, but precise and very elegant is often what the the Code roti is described as. All right, heading down to St. Joseph, which I know a lot of us have a bottle from the box for, from St. Joseph. And this is honestly some of the best value wine. And the quality here depends on the producer. You have a slow change of the soils from the northernmost section here. Obviously we're at a very big section here on St. Joseph, all the way down to the southern section. It's long but thin. And so in the north you have clay granite soils which are similar to our two white wine regions, which I skipped over, Condreu and Chateau Gruyer. These two are producing white, so we're not going to worry about those for now. The northern region, that's going to be like our soil, like the two white wine regions. And then south of here, the soil, you're going to have more marl, which is clay and limestone and acidic granite. So these wines tend to get a little bit spicier and fresher and then more floral as well. So kind of like a black peppercorn as well. So these ones are a little bit fun. If you find one from the southern area of St. Joseph, you want a little bit of age on them to give them time to kind of open up. Heading? Well, I guess we're actually just heading on the other side of the river to Croat Hermitage. This is the largest appellation. I know St. Joseph looks bigger, but it's because of the width of Croatia that's actually larger. These again are going to range in quality. You're going to have the simple food wines to really amazing Syrah. Major difference from other northern Rhone Syrahs is a tartness. And this is due to the position on the east bank of the river, which you can tell everything else is on the west side. Kraut Hermitage is on the east. Many vineyards in the region are on pebble covered terraces. So again, having those little rocks there will help the grapes ripen faster. And then granite clay soils again with a little blend of sand. And the sand usually bumps up the floral aromatics and might lighten the color a little bit. Then on top of Croat's Hermitage. You see this region? This is Hermitage. It's a tiny little micro region. It is the most famous region and probably the most expensive region for finding Syrah from. And these ones, you're going to want to give like 5 to 10 years to open up, but then you're going to have these nice layered flavors. You'll get BlackBerry, black currant, licorice, coffee, smoke, a little bit of everything. So Hermitage often referred to as the hill of Hermitage, but it is actually three adjacent southerly facing hills which if it's facing south, it's facing the equator if we're in France. And so that's a good thing. Fun fact about how it got its name. There was a 13th century crusader who was injured, took refuge here, built a chapel and basically lived on the hill in solitude. And so it got named Hermit's Hill, which in French is Hermitage without the H. I don't know where the H came from, but Hermitage is the name of it. And so each of the three hills, the soil changes a little bit. But for the most part you're going to get very similar wines here. You're going to have a lot of tannin in body, a lot of stuff happening. And then finally, our most southerly Syrah making region is Corno. This is a very underrated region. Not a lot of people think of Cornwall when they're having a northern Rhone. Foreign. I'm so grateful to the sponsors who help make this podcast possible. And Today's sponsor is one I personally love. Wine.com you know I'm all about exploring new wines, but let's be real, it's not always easy to find unique bottles, especially if you're limited to what's near you. That's why I love shopping on wine.com they have a huge selection wines at every price point, user friendly search features and real wine experts ready to help. You find your next favorite bottle. And here's a special deal just for you as a podcast listener. Get free shipping on orders over $150 at wine.com corkfizz with promo code corkfizz. My recommendation, build a mix of six to 12 bottles to try some you know, some you never heard of. Not sure what to pick. Message me. I'd love to help or take advantage. Of the live chat wine experts@wine.com they're gonna have the most bold and most tannic wines. These likely need 10 plus years to smooth out. However, there are some winemakers that are trying more modern techniques like using a lot of new oak to Kind of help soften those tannins out. So I think you might find a lot of these regions, there's also climate change, which can be making an effect. You know, these areas are getting a little warmer than they used to be, and the warmer region is the more of that fruit it produces and usually a little less tannin. All right, that was quite a deep dive into our northern Rhone. Do we have any questions? Good. Feel like we have a good idea. All right. Fun. And then, yes, we're all jealous. In which we were Rachel. And had wines from each of these regions, or at least three of these regions to try side by side would be super fun. All right, let's talk a little bit about climate and wine making, and then we'll get into our tasting. So climate here, Mediterranean climate, however, still cooler than what you would expect in southern Rhone. It's also going to have a shorter growing season, and they're going to have more rain. The wind that comes from here is la bis. This wind comes from the north, and different from southern Rhone, it actually follows the rain, which is a really good thing, because then it helps keep the wines dry or the wines, the grapes dry. So you don't have moisture developing, and so you don't have mold or mildew happening on the grapes. It also helps with keeping them free of pests and disease as well. Then, in terms of winemaking, you have a myriad of styles. Some of this is due to the terroir. Right. We shown it was a very small region, but even within that small region, there are lots of different terroir happening. Terroir, again, is like that sense of place, the. Everything that has to do with the. The grape growing, the hill or the geography, the climate, the soil, all that is terroir. You also have tradition. Tradition is kind of what a lot of winemakers, especially in these old world regions, rely on. And then you also have winemaking choices. So a lot of the winemakers will choose to do something different, like maybe they choose to de stem their grapes before making it, while others choose to do something different. You will find that there's a lot of pumpovers and cap punching. This is what happens during fermentation. The skins from the grapes separate from them, but you want all of the juice to come in contact, and so you don't want the skins just hanging out on top. So they'll either punch those skins down, or they'll bring juice up from the bottom and pour it up over the top. This also will help soften the tannin. The more that they do this. They use a lot of French barrels, but they do kind of depending on the producer, will use both new and used. New French barrels are going to give it a little bit more of that oak flavor, which in red wine sometimes comes across as coffee chocolate baking spices like cinnamon or nutmeg. Used French oak is just going to help the tannins smooth out a little bit. It's not going to add flavor. And then you're also going to see a lot of increase of biodynamic and sustainable farming in the Northern Rhone, which I think is awesome. All right, here's a little kind of preview for what you might expect from a Northern Rhone. This is not an answer key by any means. Just kind of gets you started. So. And again, there are a lot of unique flavors in these wines, so it's kind of helpful to kind of give you somewhere to start. So you are going to get some fruit, usually some black fruit. But there's also like, these wines are known for like a meatiness which is very unique. It could come across as like barbecue or bacon or just like raw meat. Then you have that olive note that we talked about before and then also kind of smoke or tobacco are also common notes here. A decent amount of tannin in body, you know, three out of five acidity and a three out of five alcohol. So kind of right in the middle there. All right, well, with that out of the way, let's jump into our Australian Shiraz. Shiraz. Shiraz, we'll. We'll call it both throughout the whole time. But let's talk a little bit about history first. So history of Shiraz in Australia dates back about 200 years. First cuttings were said to have brought over by British pioneers John MacArthur and James Busby. James Busby, very well known name, considered to be the founding father of Australian wine, also brought over a lot of vines over to New Zealand as well. He also brought Garnacha from Spain. So we brought the. The Syrah from France, Garnacha from Spain, and those two end up being like very popular wines in Australia today. Early days of Australian Shiraz saw it predominantly used in blends. Australia also produced a sweet fortified wine during this time that probably used the Shiraz as well. However, it wasn't until about the mid 20th century, in about 1959, the chief winemaker at Penfolds, which I think there were, I think Van Ca you a bottle of Penfolds. And then I think a few of us have tried Penfolds before in the past. The chief winemaker, Max Schubert. He was born in the Barossa, but he has German descent. He decided to make the wine the region's first. What's called a bin wine. And the different bins. In Australia, they call it B I n bin. It just means different blend. But he wanted to make it a blend of all the different Shiraz from a certain region. So it ended up being a single varietal Shiraz in one of the first. And as soon as he did that, people were like, holy moly. This wine can do a thing on its own. We don't need to be adding things to it. So it just kind of took off from there. I wish I had a good explanation of realizing history. Yeah, go ahead. Dane just asked a great question. Why is there a name change? Why? I was just going to say, I'm like, I wish I had a good reason. From what I could tell in my research, there is no. Like. Like, they don't have a definitive answer for this. There are a couple reasons. One. One story says that it's because, like, there was a region in southern Italy or something where like sounded like Shiraz, where they think that they might have thought it came from at that point because they had everything mixed up. Honestly, I. My best explanation that I just read yesterday in my research. Aussies love to give nicknames to things. So, you know, a barbecue is a Barbie. I'm trying to think of other good examples, but they just. They give nicknames to everything. Like, it's a very common thing in Australia. So I'm wondering if Shiraz just became a nickname. Not that Sera needed a nickname. It's pretty short as it is. But I think Shiraz is just more fun to say. But I don't know if anybody else has ever heard a better explanation. But that's what I'm going to go with. I'm going to say the Aussies preferred a more fun nickname for the wine. All right, we're going to stick with that, I think. I know. I wish I had a better reason for it. They just kind of started. It started to be known as that, and that's what they called it. Now, in terms of geography and climate, we'll look at a map in a second, but you'll see that all the vineyards are in the southerly or in the south of Australia, because the center of Australia is basically desert. And then, remember, now we're in the southern hemisphere, so the north part of Australia is going to be super warm. It's actually very steamy and tropical, so very hard to grow vines anywhere. Where it's tropical. So in the south, you have the cooling influence of the water. And then being so close to the coast, you have that effect. Big influence in Australia is something called the diurnal shift. This is where the temperature in the daytime is significantly higher than it is in the nighttime. That means during the day the grapes get to ripen, develop a lot of these fruit flavors. But then at night, that cold air traps in the acidity and keeps the grapes from getting overly ripe. And again here you're gonna have a lot of different soils. Australia is one of the oldest landmasses of the world. So we have a lot of ancient and weathered soil. Everything from iron rich clay, red volcanic and sandy loam. So taking a look, like I said, let's take a quick look at a map here. So they didn't even bother showing all of Australia. Cause it wasn't even worth it. But you can see here, you know, they zoomed in on these southerly regions because there just isn't anything in the north. And so taking a look at this, there are a lot of regions throughout here. The three that we're going to talk about that I'm going to highlight, we'll have the Barossa Valley, which is over here in the orange. And then also the McLaren Val, which is also over here in the orange. And then the other last one is going to be the Hunter Valley, which is off on the other side on the eastern side of Australia. Are there any other regions that your guys's wine came from in Australia that it says on the bottle that I could point out here? We could all zoom in on the. I have a better one here for. Well, actually this one doesn't show all of them. So any other regions that we didn't. That I didn't mention. Did you say Barossa? Yes, Barossa Valley is the one. So it's here on the orange. Okay. Over here. And then a zoomed in version here of that is right here. And so Barossa Valley is on the left side of here. And then this whole section is called Barossa, even though it includes the Barossa Valley and the Eden Valley. So it's like that purplish color. Any other regions that people have a wine from? Cool. Okay. Sorrel really does grow pretty much in almost every region in Australia, but those are kind of some of our top ones. So like I said, diving a little bit deeper into these regions, Rosa Valley, they have a Mediterranean climate. This is probably Australia's most famous, most just like well known Shiraz producing regional. They have warm grape growing areas on the valley floor and then cooler meso climates at the higher altitudes. Shiraz from Barossa, very full bodied, rich. You're going to have a lot of intense power. BlackBerry, pepper, spice. There's also going to be a distinct earthiness and meatiness. Right. Sound familiar? Syrah does this that even in different climates it can still produce these things. Tends to be relatively high in alcohol and there are significant amount of tannins. This is great for structure and long term aging. So again, this is a Barosa Valley Syrah. Another thing about Barossa Valley and just Australia in general. Australia is home to some of the world's oldest continuously productive Shiraz vines. Meaning that these vines have continued to produce since they were grown. There are a lot of other vines in other areas where they had to chop them down and regrow. So these, they haven't. This has been productive every year since they've been planted. So some of the oldest ones, some in Barossa are, were planted back in 1843, still producing grapes today. Some other ones in 1847 and 1860. Again, these are ungrafted pre phylloxera. So phylloxera did not destroy them. If you've been to a tasting before, you write, those little tiny little aphid like bugs destroyed all the vines in Europe and then everywhere else. And so it did not hit some of these vines in Australia. And so a lot of Australian Syrah will say old vine on it. But here's the problem. Old vine has no legal definition. So it could be 10 years old and they could put old vine on it and there's nothing we can do to stop them. So one family did try to make a change to this. So in the beginning of the 2000s, you had the Yalamba family, they wanted to clarify this and they created the Old Vine Charter. And then later in 2009, this was adopted and expanded to other Barosa wine growers. And it was the Barossa Old Vine Charter. So it's only true in the Barossa area, but you have designations here. So if it follows the Barossa Old Vine Charter, it'll say old if it's 35 plus years, Survivor if it's 70 plus years, Centenarian if it's a hundred plus years, the vines, and these are the vines age, not the wine, the vines and then ancestor if it's 125 years plus old. But again, this is only for those that follow this charter. But pretty amazing that they have vines that are that old. The older the vines the, the fewer grapes they produce, but they're usually incredibly concentrated and a lot of good flavor. All right. And then super quick going through our other two regions. McLaren, Val. So that one's really close to Barossa, just a little bit south, a little bit closer to the coast. So they have the cooling influence of the ocean. They have low summer rainfall. Good for the vines. Wines here, again, very rich, full bodied. They have that black fruit and then also bring in a blue fruit kind of blueberries. And then along with the fruit, they do use a lot of oak, so you'll have those strong hints of chocolate, which is different from a lot of the wines that we've tried already. And then lastly, heading over to the east side of South Australia is the Hunter Valley. This is actually the oldest wine producing region in Australia. They're mostly known for Cabernet and Semillon, but they do produce Shiraz. And it's unlike other regions in Australia. So this area is warm and humid and it's a little bit more inland. And so the wines themselves tend to be more medium bodied and they'll have a little bit more red fruit than black fruit and then a moderate alcohol and tannin. So very different compared to our other two regions. And then in terms of winemaking, one cool thing about Australia, which I think a lot of the labels, one of the labels are like, based on the labels that we're looking at, kind of gives us a hint. You know, a lot of the wines are made in traditional ways, and a lot of the winemakers there were trained abroad in different regions in Europe and have a respect for, you know, established vineyards and regions. But Australian wine is also very innovative. They're willing to, you know, take risks and do these different experiments and push the boundaries. So you'll see a lot of new things coming from this area. A lot of fun stuff, unique blends. I've been seeing a lot of Italian varietals being grown in Australia, which is really fun. So it's a good, like, mix of like, you know, traditional taking the traditional winemaking but then adding, you know, their own spin to it. So a couple different examples of this, you know, a lot more whole bunch, meaning that they don't take the grapes off the stems when they ferment. This can add a little bit more greenness to the wine and also add a little bit more structure. And then oak is common, but they primarily use French oak. And again, they experiment with either older barrels or large barrels or new barrels, kind of all across the board. And then you'll Also find that in Australia they do a lot of blending with Cabernet. Cabernet Sauvignon is actually very common to blend with Shiraz. Any questions about Australia before we get to our tasting? All right, let's dive in. Australia and Shiraz here, so pretty similar. Still looking at a deep color, you're gonna need a little more fruit. So kind of like an especially like a stewed or like a jammed fruit. So I have blueberry jam here as an example. Again, that BlackBerry is gonna be common and then we're gonna get potentially a little bit more oak notes, something from being in contact with oak that would be like the mocha or the chocolate or coffee kind of notes. And again, still spice can be common in there as well. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. Like I said, it's a little different than normal. Let me know if you like this style and if you want to be part of these virtual tastings in person, live when they're happening, come join my virtual tasting club, the Cork Crew. You can go to thecourtcrew.com or just go to Cork and Fizz and find Cork Crew underneath services and come join the club. You can get a your first two months for just $8 a month if you use code WINESPECIAL. Now, lucky for you, I have pre recorded my next two episodes. Before I got this cold, I actually got to do a really fun interview with the CEO and owner of currently wine company. This is a super unique wine. If you see it anywhere, you will recognize that it is different than many other wines because the wine comes in aluminum bottles, not aluminum cans. Aluminum bottles. And this is a major part of the wine brand and that they care a lot about sustainability and they're making changes and trying to make changes in a world such as wine that it is harder to make that change. So I talked to Daniel Rodriguez, who actually has a background more in marketing than he does in wine. But don't worry, his passion for wine makes up for the non background in it and it was a really fun interview. So you'll get part one in the next episode and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks again for listening. Cheers.