South Australia

South Australia produces roughly half of the country's wine, and almost every style Australia is known for is made somewhere inside this one state.

The warm valleys — Barossa, McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek — built the reputation for full-bodied Shiraz and Grenache. Within an hour's drive sit Clare Valley and Eden Valley, high and cool enough for dry Riesling, and the Adelaide Hills, which supplies Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to producers across the state. Coonawarra, further south, is a narrow strip of terra rossa soil over limestone planted mainly to Cabernet Sauvignon.

One structural fact matters here: South Australia has never had phylloxera. Strict quarantine has kept the louse out, so a number of vineyards still work ungrafted vines planted in the nineteenth century — among the oldest producing vines anywhere.