$19 bottle of wine named one of Australia’s best

Australia is renowned for making a good drop. But the best wines aren’t always a bargain. This one, a $19 bottle, was just named one of our best.

Alexandra Wardlaw is making some incredible wines out of South Australia’s Clare Valley.

When Frenchwoman Alexandra Wardlaw arrived in South Australia’s Clare Valley in 2018 with a suitcase and a plan to stay for four months she could not have foreseen the impact she would have on Australian wine in the space of six short years.

Hailing from the vaunted wine-growing region of Champagne, France, Wardlaw — then Alexandra Alavoine — had a penchant for making riesling, a white wine variety she had always loved.

Six years later, not only is Wardlaw still in the Clare, but she is now the senior winemaker at Kirrihill, a winery outside Hill River that is producing some of the state’s finest rieslings at some of the most astonishing prices.

Her 2023 Kirrihill Regional Series Riesling — a $19 bargain — is included in this week’s The Weekend Australian Magazine annual Drinks Issue, featuring wine critic Nick Ryan’s top 100 wines.

It is the cheapest wine on the list and is evidence, Ryan says, of the outstanding value proposition Riesling is for drinkers across the country.

Alexandra Wardlaw has delivered one of Australia’s best wines at just $19 a bottle.

“You can’t get two schooners at the pub for $19 these days but you can get a bottle of this, a riesling that some say is the best in the entire country,” he said.

He says Rieslings such as Kirrihill are part of a wave of excellent whites coming especially out of South Australia.

“Rieslings are always a great buy,” he says. “Everyone for years has kept saying that people are going to catch onto Riesling. I hope they don’t. I want to keep it for us.

“(In Australia) we are making some of the best chardonnay in the world right now but it is our Rieslings which are underappreciated.”

For her part, Wardlaw says that her 2023 vintage was a perfect fusion of elements that made for brilliantly affordable and delicious wine.

“2023 was challenging with frost but we had quite a warm vintage which helped us retain natural acid and flavour in the fruit,” she says. “I wanted to make a wine that was very approachable, a wine that you just wanted to have another glass of.”

The wine has won four major trophies across Australia including best riesling in the National Wine Show held in Canberra in May and Wardlaw is rightly proud of her creation.

See what else is on the list in The Weekend Australian Magazine’s Drinks Issue today with The Weekend Australian.

Originally published as $19 bottle of wine named one of Australia’s best