Best Australian Wines
Australian wine is an empire of dirt. It’s built on the oldest vines growing in the oldest soils and extends through clay, buckshot, schist, loam, limestone and sand. It grows through cool light, hot light, wind, snow, mountainside, valley and flatland.
The wines below have earned their place on this page the only way possible: in the glass.
The best Australian wines, as I taste them
Every time I score an Australian wine at 96/100 points or higher, it earns the Best Australian Wine tag and appears here automatically. This list is dynamic; it updates as outstanding wines cross my desk. It is not influenced by wineries, retailers or advertisers.
Updated: July 2026.
About this page
What qualifies a wine for this list? Every wine on this page scored 96/100 or above in a published review by Campbell Mattinson. The list is generated automatically from the Best Australian Wines tag – when a new chardonnay review meets the threshold, it appears here without manual curation. No winery pays for inclusion.
What does "best Australian chardonnay" mean? Chardonnay is arguably the variety Australia now does best. The wines on this list are drawn from Australia's leading chardonnay regions – the Yarra Valley, Margaret River, Beechworth, Tasmania, the Adelaide Hills and the Mornington Peninsula among them – though outstanding chardonnay in Australia can, and does, come from anywhere.
Who maintains this list? Campbell Mattinson is an independent Australian wine critic: former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion, former editor of Halliday magazine, founder of The Winefront (est. 2002), and the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. All reviews are conducted independently.
Page maintained by Campbell Mattinson. Last updated July 2026.
"This is seriously good." Campbell Mattinson's 96-point review of Elanto Chardonnay 2024, from one of Australia's most densely planted vineyards.