As the weather cools and meals are served rich and full-flavoured, it’s time for a hearty wine to match. Shiraz, or syrah, is a great red variety that can grow in many regions, can make drink-now wines to age-worthy wonders and can produce a range of styles – from perfumed and subtle to heady blockbusters. Shiraz makes quaffable drops under $10 as well as some of the world’s most profound wines, including our very own Penfolds Grange and Henschke Hill of Grace.

Depending on where it’s grown, shiraz can be different in style. The warmer regions of the Barossa Valley and Eden Valley generally make fuller-flavoured styles brimming with dark fruit, liquorice and chocolate. The Hunter Valley produces medium-bodied earthy styles, while cooler regions offer perfumed styles, with lots of pepper and spice.

Although Australia’s default shiraz – and its most famous – was for many years the full-bodied, high-alcohol blockbusters produced in warmer wine regions, there are more and more winemakers producing cooler-climate versions in places such as the Yarra Valley, Grampians and Tasmania. Cool-climate shiraz is a more perfumed, structured and even spicy wine. In Australia, such styles are often labelled syrah, as a nod to the winemaking style of the famous wines of the Rhone Valley in France.

What’s more, shiraz blends beautifully with other varieties. When blended with grenache, shiraz adds spice to the typically light to medium-bodied wine. Cabernet sauvignon has a hollow structure (many say like a doughnut) so the addition of shiraz adds flesh to the middle palate, just like a squirt of jam!