100 Best Australian Wines Festival 2025 – What to Expect?

As Matthew Jukes launches the 21^st edition of his world-renowned celebration of the 100 Best Australian Wines, we hear just what we have to look forward to at the exciting Festival with Matthew and Wine Events Scotland. We talk to Matthew about what to expect from an event that packs 52 of his top choices into one tasting, including wines never poured at a festival before, £100 bottles, and the first chance for tasting in the UK.

In 2004, I launched my first 100 Best at Australia House in London, choosing 100 bottles just as I do today. Back then, I printed out an A4 page, with the wines listed on both sides, and handed one to everyone as they walked in. I invited lots of sommeliers, wine writers and press, and they wandered round, had a taste, and that was it. And I thought that was amazingly successful!

But I hadn’t told consumers about it – it was stuck in the wine trade. So, as the years have gone by, I’ve become obsessed with taking these wines out and about around the UK, and showing them to people who love them.

Last year’s list was more of a book – 82 pages long with lots of pictures. Not only were the 100 best wines included, but I added others of note within each range; this year there are 271 inclusions.

I’ve just finished writing this year’s and on 15 March in Edinburgh we will sample 52 of these wines. Everyone attending the festival will be given a copy of this book and it is fantastic; it’s a complete work of art.

Can you give new visitors to the festival a bit of insight as to what to expect?

Get there on time, because there are lots of wines to choose from and you will want as long as possible to make the most of it. There will be lots of tables laid out with four or five bottles on each and a wine expert on hand to tell you about them. There is no numbering system – you can bounce around the tables as you see fit. Take it at your own pace and you’ll learn a lot.

The most expensive wine costs more than £100, while the cheapest is £15, which is double the price of an average bottle of wine in the UK. In fact, the average price of the of the 52 wines we’re showing in Edinburgh is £39! So we are tasting the crème de la crème of Oz elite wine at this event. It’s not just expensive wines that get into this list, it is the ones that we want to enjoy every day.

I split wine drinking into everyday drinking, weekends and then special occasions. There are three categories and the everyday drinking section of Australian wine is enormous because the wines are such incredible value for money.

I found more £15 wines than ever this year. The value is extraordinary and this is where Ozzy wines are world class. That’s where I think people’s brains are going explode with the quality of the perfumes, the flavours, the lengths and the professionalism.

At each sip think, what could France do for that money? What would Spain be doing for the same spend? This Ozzy wine rules the roost, which is why I’m so excited to show them each year. It’s like a Polaroid of what’s great this year. And that’s why I’ve been doing it for such a long time.

Last year, you had the highest number of Pinots in your top 100; the value is still fantastic and they’re beautifully fresh, bright, stunning wines with lovely acidity.

It has been a real theme in the last 10 years and it’s obvious now that cool-climate Ozzy wines are becoming very popular.

We’re familiar with some of the warmer, richer, heavier wines, but there are so many wines made on a hill or mountain, or near the coast, where the nights are nice and cool. You can get incredible freshness and inbuilt tension.

It really highlights the fact that across Europe and North America, climate change is noticeable and you’re seeing it in the wines. Whereas, Australia is this vast country with such climate diversity that there are plenty of wine-growing regions you would describe as chilly, which is why so many of the wines are fresh.

We talk about Chardonnays of the old days when they used to be really big, rich and heavily oaked.  But nowadays, and they are just beautiful. I have a bottle of Cherubino Pemberton Chardonnay, which is stunning; it is really full bodied, but it just dances.

Pemberton is not very known yet, but Larry Cherubino is famous for making wines in Western Australia. He has lots of vines in Pemberton and Frankland River, and in Margaret River. The Pemberton Chardonnay I tasted last October was one of my highest-scoring white wines of the year – and that includes everything, not just Australian wines. So it was obvious it was going to make it into the 100 Best.

I’ve got Robert Oatley’s Finisterre Margaret River Chardonnay, £26, from the 2022 vintage in Edinburgh. In my tasting note for this, I compared it to Burgundy and said it’s far and away the finest-value Chardonnay at that price in the world!

When you look at the colour, you can see it’s gleaming and possibly even looks a bit green tinged; it’s so clean and fresh. It’s three years old already and it will go another five years with ease. It’s a mark of how classy these wines are and they have the propensity to age, which is quite astonishing.

I’ve also got the baby wine from Robert Oatley, it’s called Signature Series. It costs £15 and is in multiple retailers. It’s basically a chip off the old block of the chardonnay, yet it’s half the price.

Next, we head over to Victoria and Yering Station’s Chardonnay, which is magnificent and just £20. Yering Station was the first Vineyard in the Yara Valley in Victoria in 1838.

Back to Margaret River Xanadu, for a very different shape of wine, much more stern, structured, a little bit more biscuity and that’s your main course Chardonnay.

Then Howard Park – a legend in the Margaret River. Their wine is a little bit more expensive. I have a Chardonnay from their Heritage range. The fruit comes from Karridale, which is a brilliant sub region of Margaret River.

Another Margaret River Chardonnay is from Hazel’s Vineyard, a huge favourite of mine, which takes the Burgundian idea of having an estate and then splitting it up into single vineyards. McHenry Hohnan is the name of the winery. This bottle is £35, so a bit more special occasion stuff. It is incredibly silky, if you haven’t tasted it, it’s going to blow you away.

Within this group of Chardonnays, you’ll go from the crystal-clear, bright, light style to the fully upholstered main course oak style. As you taste these wines at the festival, you’ll get your head around the peacock’s tail of Chardonnay flavours in one place at one time. A rare experience.

Going up the spectrum of flavours to the aromatic whites, what have you got to surprise us?

We’ve got a Roussanne, which we don’t normally find. It’s quite a quirky grape from the Rhône Valley in France. Northern Rhône make a few wines which are 100%, and sometimes they blend it with Marsanne.  In the southern Rhône, it pops up in a couple of wines, but it’s very unusual. It’s quite quirky, but, in the right hands, it’s celestial.  This award-winning version is from Yangarra, in McLaren Vale.

With Dandelion Vineyards, Eden Valley Riesling, dry riesling, we’re going up to Wonderland of the Eden Valley. (That’s what it’s called – I haven’t just made that one up as a tasting note!) Wonderland of the Eden Valley is made by Zar and Eleanor Brooks. Priced just under £30, it’s probably one of the most luxurious dry Rieslings from the Eden Valley. This is a wine that would convert people to Riesling; not too fruity and there’s no sweetness, it’s bone dry and a really beautiful wine.

We haven’t talked about semillon yet so, in order to whet your palate, start at a Tyrell’s table, the most famous semillon producer. Try Tyrell’s Hunter Valley Semillon 2024 vintage; really clean, young and fresh. Then try 2018 Belford, £55, which I’d describe as the finest dry semillon in the world that is unoaked. We’re not comparing this style to the oaky wines from Bordeaux. This is a clean, bright, style, released when it’s six years old. It’s water white with mega complex shapes and sought by collectors all over the world, because they know they can buy it and stick it in their cellar. If they forget about it for 10 years, it still looks epic when opened. This is a real preview – I don’t think anyone has seen this one before.

Before we move on to the reds, let’s talk fizz

From the House of Arras, in Tasmania, they have a wonderful, incredibly pale rose. If you hold a glass over a piece of paper and look through the wine, you’ll see it has the faintest tinge of raspberry colour. One of their top wines, it’s called Brut Elite Rose, and will be going head to head with Champagnes priced at £45 and above.

Most wine lovers will be familiar with Jansz, which has only missed out on inclusion of the 100 Best twice in 21 years. So that would make them the most reliable fizz brand in the whole of the Southern Hemisphere. Try the Jansz Premium Cuvee, which is fantastic.

Pinot pops back up

I’ve also got an Adelaide Hills Pinot from Marty Edwards’ Silver Lining Wines. One of the best pinots ever made and just £22 for a first-class wine.

Giant Steps Winery is my winery of the year in Australia and its Yarra Valley Pinot Noir is sublime, with a light, fresh style. They also have a fantastic Chardonnay called Sexton Vineyard.

We also have a Pipers River Pinot Noir from Dalrymple Vineyards in Tasmania. Made by Peter Caldwell, who is particularly site specific and loves the vineyard’s farms, it’s of extraordinarily high quality. So those pinots make for a really exciting trio!

Matthew’s masterclass – Icons of Australia

For this very special masterclass, I like to pull something out of my cellar and show what happens as time goes on and wines start to mature. I’ve got four wines in mind – all icons – one is priced around £100, one is £65 and two are £30 plus. These are really special wines, so this is the masterclass you really want to be at!

Cabernet Sauvignon

Let’s talk about cabernet sauvignon next because it’s such an iconic style of wine from Australian and we’ve got a few standouts this year.  I’ve got two wines from Moss Wood Winery in Margaret River. I’ve got Amy’s, which is around £20, and I’ve got the Grand Vin, the proper Moss Wood cabernet, which is around £80. We’ve got Kaesler’s Age of Light Cabernet, which is the first great cabernet Kaesler has made. It’s impressive to see that Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon can be as delicious and delightful as the wines from Margaret River or Coonawarra.

On the next table, there is a comparison of two wines, side by side. World renowned Wynns Black Label Coonawarra Cabernet, the 2022 vintage, and next to it the most expensive wine of the day, Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddock Cabernet, 2021 vintage, which I gave 19.5 out pf 20 in my scoring. This is a very exclusive wine.

Moving on to the next few tables, Larry Cherubino has his Margaret River Cabernet 2021, so you can compare that to Moss Wood’s 2021, so that’s a fight to the death!  At a tasting last year, I tasted Robert Oatley The Pennant Cabernet, 2018, which comes from way south in Western Australia. From around 80 cabernets, that was the one that stood out. And we’re going to see that wine in Edinburgh, which is a real treat.

We’ve also got – and this is the first time this has ever been poured – Howard Park Abercrombie Cabernet. It’s a 2022 vintage, costs around £80 and it’s the top wine they have in their portfolio, so that’s a real preview and it’s an awesome creation! And we’ve got 2021 Vasse Felix Cabernet Sauvignon – 2020 was a brilliant yar for them. It’s quite a light vintage for Vasse Felix, so this is very fragrant. It’s more red fruited than black fruited, and it’s a fascinating wine.

There are lots of treats in store and particularly exciting that we have access to so many wines that there is not that much stock of. Can you share your passion for the classic Australian blend of Cabernet and Shiraz – I think you call it ‘the great Australian red’?

When the first pioneers went to Australia, the standard wines they knew were German Rieslings, they knew the Burgundies and Bordeaux, and the Clarets. When they went to Australia, found the climate was completely different, they made wines shaped like the favourite wines from home, not necessarily made from the same grapes. So, for example, Hunter Burgundy was a Hunter Valley red wine that tasted like a Burgundy.

This ‘Burgundy’ from Hunter wasn’t made from pinot noir – they didn’t have any pinot noir planted – it was made from Shiraz. They basically made wines that reminded them of home. One style they were desperate to reproduce was Bordeaux. To create a Bordeaux flavour, they found that cabernet worked extremely well with shiraz, but, of course, that’s not done in France. Using shiraz was a great idea, which I learned on all my trips to Australia.

For the past 20 years, I’ve been celebrating this blend by calling it the great Australian Red, because this is Australia’s invention – I think they’re the greatest wines Australia makes.

I’ve got two of the most famous: Lake Breeze Bernoota from Langhorne Creek in South Australia. Bernoota is the wine people buy  to lay down and it will last 20 years. It costs £24, so literally it’s the least expensive iconic red you can think of, and we will be tasting the 21 vintage, which is an absolute superstar of a wine.

I’ve also got a very famous candidate, Yalumba, ‘The Signature’ Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz. It’s twice the price at £45, and I think the 21 is one of the finest vintages of this wine ever made in its 50-year history. So that’s pretty cool. Those are the two  cabernet-shiraz as blends on tasting at the Edinburgh Festival.

We have some wonderful grenache or shiraz dominant-wines to taste

This is where you can spread the price from the bottom to the top, because there’s a lot of shiraz    growing in Australia.

Obviously, there are a couple of grenache wines as well, but shiraz performs extremely well at the lower reaches, and so Yolumba’s Samuel’s Collection Brother Shiraz, is that sort of fighting price £15 with epic flavour, which is on one of the tables. I think you want to taste that wine, really get your bearings and then head over to taste some of the crazy stuff.

Torbreck has three absolutely insane wines to taste, two of which are blends and on is a straight shiraz at £50. Torbreck is the only estate in the world I’ve awarded three perfect 20 out of 20 scores in one tasting. The only one ever. I can’t believe it will ever happen again in my lifetime and I’ve been doing this for 38 years, so that’s an incredible situation.

Mount Langi Ghiran Cliff Edge Shiraz is a 2021, which is probably one of the best vintages from Mount Langi ever, and I’ve gone back 20, 30 years with them. Cliff Edge is their best-value wine because it grabs some of the grandeur of Malangi’s Blue Label, which is £100, and it does this for £24. So that’s a really special wine – something no one will have tasted it.

If you’ve never tasted Jasper Hill before, the  Occam’s Razor Shiraz, from Heathcote, Victoria, is a really quirky, artisan, kind of slightly esoteric style that’s built on that  earth of Heathcote. The Heathcote region has this amazing red dirt and the Jasper Hill wine captures that essence, that Outback essence, it’s a stunner. I’m thrilled they are on the festival circuit because I’ve never poured that wine before in my life.

Now get your cult hat on for Alkina Kin Grenache and Kin Shiraz side by side. Alkina is one of the most sought-after new names in Australia. They take their fruit from the Barossa Valley. The soil has been mapped out by Pedro Para, who’s the world’s most famous soil consultant. And then these wines are made with the underground soil structure in mind as opposed to just what the vine does above ground.

The flavours dance; these dance on your tongue, for red wines, they are spectacular; they’re floral, challenging on the nose with sort of dried herbs. They’re really melodic,  quite bitter, quite challenging. They demand food, but they’re so, so, so lovable. And these Kin wines are priced at £26, so they’re not out of reach and you should really look at those. They’re amazing.

Penfolds is an extraordinary wine list to sign up for the festival – it blew my mind.

From Yangarra Estate in Mclaren Vale, we’ve got a straight grenache, so you can taste grenache without any other varieties on board. After you’ve had that flavour cavorting around your palate, you can say ‘what’s next?’ Next is a £90 Ironheart Shiraz from Yangarra, which is magnificent. It’s from that amazing Maslin Beach sandy kind of soil over ironstone, hence its name Ironheart. I’ve never had that wine at a festival before, so that’s really exciting.

We’ve got Kaesler’s The Bogan Shiraz, which is a beautiful, polished wine. And another preview, 2021 Mitolo G.A.M. Shiraz, from Mitolo Wines, and named after founder Frank Mitolo’s three children, Gemma, Alexandra and Marquez. I’m sure the 2021 has never been tasted in the UK before, but it’s on its way to us and is priced at £40. It’s a really sexy wine, super smooth.

To top it all off, we head to absolute superheroes, d’Arenberg’s The Dead Arm Shiraz, a 2018 so fully mature costing around £45. And next door to that is Wynns’ ‘Michael’ Shiraz. They only make about 1,000 bottles a year for the whole world. That’s an £80 bottle.

Food and wine pairing

Alongside these incredible wines, we’ve got Mellis Cheese, who are bringing several different cheeses and some cheese platters, so you can discover which wines will pair best with which cheeses. You can see what you think about some of  these cheeses and how they change  the flavour of the wines, because  wines always  taste different with different foods. Food will stay the same, but wines will often change, so it’s going to be a bit of fun.

We’ve also got the wonderful Juan Santelices of Picari Chocolate. This is authentic, organic, single origin, award-winning Ecuadorian chocolate, which can be tasted alongside the wine or on its own.

On a musical note, the festival kicks off with Scottish piping. Everyone will be piped into the festival, in our traditional manner. Organiser Diana Thompson’s youngest daughter will join the pipers for the first time.

So, to sum up this 21st anniversary event, visitors can expect to taste 52 of the finest wines made in Australia. Each will get the Matthew Jukes 100 Best book, which includes 20,071 recommendations, of which 52 will be poured in Edinburgh on the day.

These wines are of the very highest quality imaginable, and the average price of the bottles being poured is £39, that is a really high-quality average. And that’s not just the top wines, which are around £100 a bottle. There are also wines to taste that have never been seen before by anybody in the United Kingdom. The first opportunity will be this tasting. So, you got a preview as well as a range of vintages. There are beautiful flights of wines of each grape variety. From an educational point of view, let alone a hedonistic point of view, you will have an extraordinary time.

Matthew Jukes 100 Best Australian Wines Festival is on Saturday March 15th at the Edinburgh Academy. Tickets from £32 from www.wineeventsscotland.co.uk.