“Tapping into the strength of Australia’s history and framing it as the unique draw-card of the future, the Shiraz Cabernet blend is the secret weapon to take the Australian wine industry into its next era,” writes Tyson Stelzer about the Great Australian Red 2022 event.
Matthew Jukes and Tyson Stelzer (l-r)
The Great Australian Red is a wine competition created by Matthew Jukes and Tyson Stelzer to recognise and celebrate the blend that defines Australia: Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.
The Cabernet Shiraz blend is Australia’s definitive wine style, its only unique and ageworthy flagbearer which is able to stand confidently alongside the benchmark red wines of Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhône, Piedmont, Tuscany and California.
Now in its sixteenth year, the competition is recognised in wine circles domestically and internationally as one of Australia’s key specialist wine events and an important showcase of Australia’s greatest red wines.
The Shiraz Cabernet blend is an Australian institution. This country championed it, refined it and still does it better than anyone else on the planet. Shiraz Cabernet is Australia’s national treasure of the red wine world, and it deserves to be recognised and celebrated as Australia’s greatest red.
The judging for The Great Australian Red is split into two panels who taste (blind) separately but taste all the wines, the scores then being shared and Gold Award wines tasted again to seek out the overall champions in each category.
The Great Australian Red Results 2022
44 entries yielded five gold medals, 16 silver medals and 19 bronze medals, the highest ever proportion of medals in the history of The Great Australian Red.
Yalumba, The Caley Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2012 was the winner of The Great Australian Red 2014 and 2015, the first wine in the history of the competition to win the top trophy twice. This wine has now made history again as the first to win three times, with the 2016 vintage awarded The Great Australian Red 2022. The 2018 vintage was also in the running as the winner of the trophy for the Best Cabernet-Dominant Blend.
The winner of the trophy for the Best Wine $25-$60 was Elderton Wines, Ode to Lorraine 2020, the first trophy won by this label since the 2002 vintage was the winner of the trophy for the Best Cabernet-dominant blend in the inaugural competition in 2006. The 2020 vintage was the first made by Brock Harrison, a past judge of The Great Australian Red.
So here are those results in full…
The Great Australian Red 2022
Yalumba, The Caley Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2016
Trophy for the Best Cabernet-Dominant Blend
Yalumba, The Caley Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2018
Trophy for the Best Wine $25-$60
Elderton Wines, Ode to Lorraine 2020
Trophy for the Best Wine $60 and over
Yalumba, The Caley Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2016
Gold Medals
Elderton Wines, Ode to Lorraine 2020
Heartland Wines, One 2016
Penfolds, Superblend 802.B Cabernet Shiraz 2018
Yalumba, The Caley Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2018
Yalumba, The Caley Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2016
Silver Medals
Chapel Hill, Small Batch Cabernet Shiraz 2020
Dutschke Wines, Jackson Cabernet Shiraz 2018
Dutschke Wines, There Comes a Time Shiraz Cabernet 2020
Glaetzer Wines, Anaperenna Shiraz Cabernet 2020
Jacob’s Creek, Johann Shiraz Cabernet 2013
Kirrihill Wines, E.B.’s The Peacemaker Clare Cabernet Shiraz 2018
Majella Wines, The Malleea by Majella 2016
St Hugo, Cabernet Shiraz 2020
St Hugo, Cabernet Shiraz 2018
Swinney, Frankland River Cabernet Syrah 2020
Tapanappa, Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Shiraz 2017
Taylors, Masterstroke Cabernet Shiraz 2018
The Thief? Old Vine Shiraz Cabernet 2021
Wirra Wirra, The Holy Thirst Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2018
Yalumba, FDR1A Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2016
Yalumba, The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2018
Bronze Medals
Burge Family Wine Estates, Barossa Boy Double Trouble Shiraz Cabernet 2019
Chaffey Bros Wine Co, Superbarossa 2020
Chaffey Bros Wine Co, Superbarossa 2018
Collett Scott, Collett Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2016
Goode Wine Company, Wangolina Limestone Coast Shiraz Cabernet 2021
Goode Wine Company, Wangolina Limestone Coast Shiraz Cabernet 2017
Heartland Wines, Spice Trader 2018
Majella Wines, The Musician by Majella 2020
Majella Wines, The Musician by Majella 2019
Metala Wines, White Label Shiraz Cabernet 2021
Salomon, Norwood Heritage Red 2020
Schild Estate, Narrow Road Vineyard Shiraz Cabernet 2019
St Hugo, Cabernet Shiraz 2019
Taylors, Masterstroke Cabernet Shiraz 2017
Terre a Terre, Crayères Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2019
Terre a Terre, Crayères Vineyard Reserve 2018
The Thief? Shiraz Cabernet 2021
Tyrrell’s, Vat 8 Shiraz Cabernet 2021
Wirra Wirra, Church Block 2020
Tyson Stelzer explains the concept and history of The Great Australian Red
The history of the Australian wine industry is hinged on one wine style. It’s not Grange. This is a wine far more unique, far more definitively Australian; indeed, more highly regarded even than Grange.
Shiraz Cabernet is The Great Australian Red. First championed in Australia in the late 1800s as generic “claret”, the blend of Shiraz and Cabernet was resurrected in the 1950s. By 1962, Max Schubert, the creator of Grange, had made what he himself named the best wine of his illustrious career. A blend of Coonawarra Cabernet and Barossa Shiraz, 1962 Penfolds Bin 60A is now Penfolds’ most successful show wine of all time, and has on countless occasions over a half-century been heralded as the greatest Australian red wine ever made.
Over the ensuing decades, the direction of red winemaking in this country was changed forever by the profound impact of this wine and hundreds of others, which shared a similar formula. Schubert and his contemporaries were convinced of the potential of Cabernet, both on its own and as a blending partner for Shiraz. By the mid-1970s, the blend was rife across the landscape of the Australian wine industry.
That was 40 years ago, a long way from the frenetic pace of the industry today. Australia now churns out tens of thousands of labels every year. How many of these represent blends of Shiraz and Cabernet? A few hundred, if that.
If many of the greatest wines that this country has ever produced are Shiraz Cabernet blends, why don’t we see more made today? It seems that the blend has slipped out of the limelight, in the wake of the rise of Shiraz, Viognier, Grenache blends and an entourage of alternative red varietals. The Great Australian Red was created in 2006 to shift this focus back to our unique icon.
The future of Australia’s wine industry depends on it just as much as has its past. Tapping into the strength of Australia’s history and framing it as the unique draw-card of the future, the Shiraz Cabernet blend is the secret weapon to take the Australian wine industry into its next era. The Great Australian Red is free of the constraints of region, price and style, drawing together great examples of all styles, at all price points, from every Australian state.
The Great Australian Red is an innovative wine competition to encourage, identify and promote Shiraz Cabernet blends. Since its conception in 2006, this competition has put the Shiraz Cabernet blend back into the focus of Australia, and now, the world. It is our pleasure to bring every entry of this competition to London for the first time.
The full list of judges were: Matthew Jukes, Tyson Stelzer, Roger Jones, Susie Barrie MW, James Handford MW, Freddy Bulmer, Nelson Pari, Katherine Fisher
