Shiraz, Evolving

In McLaren Vale, Shiraz is part of the landscape. It threads through red ironstone and sand, through the region’s history and economy, through the way people think about wine. Every generation has made it differently, and every change has said something about where the Vale stood in its own understanding of itself. 
 
The first plantings were practical. Shiraz was a workhorse variety for fortified wines, valued for colour, structure and yield. Wines left in bulk, fortified to survive the journey. The ironstone cellars built in the late nineteenth century were engines of trade, not temples of terroir. Winemakers spoke of sugar and spirit, not of slope or soil.
 
The turn came slowly. After the Second World War, when Australians began to drink table wine, McLaren Vale found itself well suited to the shift. The Mediterranean climate, the patchwork of sands, clays and schists, and a new generation of growers willing to experiment set the region on a different path. By the 1960s, people like Greg Trott at Wirra Wirra were rebuilding wineries that had fallen silent and rethinking what Shiraz could be.

The style that emerged through the seventies and eighties carried the warmth of the region and the optimism of the time. These were generous wines, rich in colour and flavour, unapologetically Australian. They found success because they reflected who we were. But with time came maturity, and the question shifted from how to make good Shiraz to what McLaren Vale Shiraz should mean.
 
That question has shaped the last twenty years. As vines have aged and palates have changed, the region has moved from muscle toward definition. Winemakers began to see that the Vale’s strength wasn’t power, but diversity. A few kilometres could separate the red clay loams of Seaview from the pale sands of Blewitt Springs, giving tannins of entirely different grain. Altitude brought perfume. Sand gave length. Limestone and calcrete gave depth. The conversation turned from ripeness to texture, from extraction to proportion.
 
Farming changed too. The move toward organics and biodynamics was less about image than about understanding. Healthier and more resilient soils produced fruit with natural balance, and that meant less need for correction in the winery. The wines began to feel more effortless, still generous, but more finely built.
 
Wirra Wirra’s own story follows that same curve. The Sandhill Vineyard, planted around 1960, lies on the Pirramimma sandstone formation that gives dark fruit and savoury tannin. When Trott secured it in 1969, it became a lens through which to see what balance could look like in a warm region. Half a century later, securing Whitings Ridge in Blewitt Springs, dry grown, own rooted, planted on deep Maslin sand, adds the other side of the equation.

Together, they show how far the Vale has come: two sites, one built on depth, the other on lift, speaking clearly without excess. You can find the perfect melding of these two sites in our 2022 RSW Shiraz, recently awarded a Trophy for Best Shiraz Three Years and Older in the 2025 McLaren Vale Wine Show, or taste individual blocks alone in our 2022 Chook Block and House Block wines.

Further north, at Clarendon, Shiraz takes on yet another shape. The Bekkers Vineyard sits on red clay over schist and gives a wine with red fruit, taut tannin and long savoury finish. Tasting our 2024 Bekkers Clarendon Estate Syrah proves that warmth and freshness can coexist when site is understood rather than controlled.

Looking across these vineyards now, what stands out isn’t how they differ, but how the region has learned to read them. The wines feel more fluent. They carry their landscape more lightly.

For the global trade, that evolution is exciting. McLaren Vale no longer sits in the shadow of cooler regions or in the stereotype of heat and sweetness. It stands as an example of how a mediterranean climate, when treated with patience and respect, can give wines of depth and precision. It shows that generosity and detail are not opposites, but parts of the same truth.

For growers and winemakers here, it’s a source of pride. For those who buy and pour these wines, it’s a reminder that balance comes from intent. Shiraz built McLaren Vale. The way we grow and make it now will define what the region means for the century ahead.

For more information, please contact Wirra Wirra CEO, Matthew Deller MW via email here.