I had only been to Australia once before, in 2016, when over the course of three weeks I was able to visit many of the key regions, but with one glaring omission: Tasmania. A large island south of the Australian mainland, I just couldn’t fit it in. I determined, however, that if I ever got to visit Australia again I would make it to Tasmania.

Tasmania is an example of how Australian wine has changed over the last couple of decades, and continues to change. In comparison to regions like Barossa Valley where the wine industry is over 150 years old, commercial winemaking in Tasmania only really started in the 1970s: all the winemakers I spoke to admitted that Tasmania as a whole is still learning. Its wine industry slowly emerged as the fashion for big, full-bodied, high-alcohol wines dominated Australia in the 1990s and 2000s—Tasmanian wines did not fit into those trends at all. But over the last decade or so, Australia has moved to much lighter styles, pushing the island to the front of conversations about Australian wine.

climate

Tasmania is literally and figuratively one of Australia’s coolest wine regions. Overall, Tasmania has a cool maritime climate with a strong influence from both wind and sun. Diurnal temperature variation is minimal: days are warmish, nights moderate. Vintage variation, in terms of quantity rather than quality, can be quite extreme—which is why sparkling wine is a good option as non-vintage wines allow consistency in production just as in Champagne.

However, there’s quite a lot of variation in its climate. I visited Coal River Valley, to the south of the island, where annual rainfall is 450mm. When I arrived in the evening it was cool and balmy, with a strong smell of sea air. But the next day was warm, temperatures reaching 26°C. As in New Zealand, which Tasmania is parallel with, the sunlight is intense and direct. After I left, temperatures were set to hit 35°C. This was at the height of summer and temperatures that high are extreme and rare—but this is a warmer, drier region than I had anticipated.

The north of the island, which I didn’t get to visit (it’s over a three hour drive from Hobart), is different, more humid with higher annual rainfall (800mm). The soils are more basalt based, compared to the south where they are more dolomite and sandstone. As a result, the character of the wines differs for more delicate styles—this is where some of the best sparkling wine comes from. Regions here include Tamar Valley and Pipers River. East Coast, as the name suggests, is on the eastern coast of Tasmania, also known for producing high-quality sparkling wine, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir.

sparkling wine

Bubbles are what Tasmania excels in. I visited Jansz, the best known sparkling wine producer on the island (owned by Hill-Smith, the largest family-owned company in Australia: other brands include Yalumba and Pewsey Vale in South Australia and Dalrymple, who produce fantastic Pinot Noir, also in Tasmania). Jansz have a brand-new facility 30 minutes outside Hobart, Tasmania’s biggest city on the south of the island, but most of their vineyards are on the northern side. The new winery in Coal River Valley is surrounded by plenty of vineyards, and they have begun to make sparkling wine from them too. Their non-vintage wines are consistently excellent; whenever I taste them with WSET students, they’re astonished the wines come from Australia because of their lightness and freshness.

At the winery, the visit focused on the vintage wines. I tasted base wines from 2022, and then finished, bottled wines from various years. It’s rare to get to try the base wines for sparkling wines. I tasted them straight from stainless steel tanks, aged for ten months with some lees stirring after fermentation in old oak barrels. As one would expect, the acidity—particularly in the Chardonnay—was extremely high, but these were exceptional, young wines in their own right, which of course is the starting point for any great wine.

wines tasted

Single Vineyard Chardonnay 2022 (from tank) and 2016 (in bottle)

The base wine had an acid kick but the lees ageing gave it a richness and roundness, even though the wine is only a year old; as with the other sparkling wines, it was also fermented with native yeasts which may add to the round texture. The bottled wine from 2016 spent four and a half years on the lees, with just 4g/L dosage, for a savoury, acidic, lightly rich but delicate style, with a mature complexity (✪✪✪✪✪✪).

Rosé 2022 (from tank) and 2018 (in bottle)

All from Pinot Noir, the base wine was completely white—the colour in the final wine comes from adding red wine at dosage. The base wine again had a still integrating lees texture and high acid; the final wine from 2018 was aged for three years on the lees with a higher dosage of 6g/L which balanced the fruitiness of the wine with red fruit, sweet spice, creamy aromas (✪✪✪✪✪).

Vintage Cuvée 2022 (from tank) and 2018 (in bottle)

A blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir—the final blend in the 2018 was 60% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir—the base wine felt very acid driven, while the bottled wine (three and a half years on the lees, 4.6g/L dosage) was gentler, the ageing giving it a soft maturity while maintaining complex floral, creamy, sweet spice aromas (✪✪✪✪✪).

Pontos Hills Vintage Cuvée 2022 (from tank) and 2017 (in bottle)

This was the only wine of the four to come from the new property in Coal River Valley. It's a field blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Meunier, and both the base wine and the bottled wine felt wilder and rounder than the wines from the north end of the island. 2017 is the first release of the wine, and it will definitely develop with each future vintage (✪✪✪✪✪).

The overall style of Tasmanian sparkling wine is subtly unique. It has a crisp acidity which isn’t as high as Champagne or England; there is a greater weight and fruitiness, though not as much as Franciacorta; there is more concentration than most Crémant or Cava. How to spot it in a blind tasting? Look for gentle floral, stone fruit aromas with the crisp acidity to balance long lees ageing. Also recommended: House of Arras, Clover Hill

riesling

Riesling is one of Australia's signature grape varieties, especially in the regions of Clare and Eden Valleys in South Australia. Like Riesling around the world, it's not as popular with consumers as it once was with perceptions of sweetness still dominant. However, there's plenty of it made in Tasmania. It feels softer and less acidic than the more famous wines of Clare and Eden, but that might be because quite a few producers leave some residual sugar in the wines. The lime zest aromas associated with Australian Riesling are still very much present though.

Highlight

Dr. Edge Riesling 2022: this wine had more of the pronounced zesty lime and lemon aromas one would expect from Australian Riesling, with sharp acidity. A serious, intense wine (✪✪✪✪).

pinot noir and chardonnay

Not uncoincidentally, Tasmania has a reputation for both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay as well as sparkling wine. The Pinot Noir is an interesting cross between the rest of Australia and New Zealand, with quite a deep colour, a rustic feel, lively acidity, bright red fruit aromas, and quite ripe tannins. The wines aren't as smooth as, say, Mornington Peninsula, with more of an earthy, edgy quality. As for Chardonnay, I didn't taste much on this trip but in Adelaide I retried Tolpuddle's 2021 Vineyard Chardonnay which remains simply superb: there's an intense, linear quality, again reminiscent of New Zealand's best Chardonnay with a fruity, floral intensity which allows the integration of new oak to add further complexity (✪✪✪✪✪✪).

Highlight

Dr. Edge Pinot Noir 2021. This typified everything I enjoyed about Tasmanian Pinot: earthy, rustic, slightly wild, but fruity, juicy, and very moreish (✪✪✪✪✪✪). Also recommended: Dalrymple (not tasted on this trip).

spirits

I have to confess I got a little distracted on the trip by Tasmania's spirits boom—there is an astonishing amount of distilleries making consistently excellent whisky and gin. As I was driving back to Hobart from some wine tastings, I saw a sign for Sullivans Cove: it hadn't even crossed my mind that I'd be able to visit one of the world’s leading producers of some very expensive, hard-to-find whisky. Back at the hotel, I immediately looked them up to see if I could make a reservation for the next day. I could, and the following afternoon there I was.

Sullivans Cove was founded in the early 1990s, when there were next to no other distilleries on the island. For the first few years, it had a mixed level of quality but connoisseurs from mainland Australia suspected there was something interesting going on and invested and then took over the distillery. Quality slowly built (any new whisky distillery takes some years to establish a style and consistency), until Sullivans Cove won the world's best whisky in 2014 and then the best single-malt in 2016. International interest in the whiskeys spiralled, and they are greatly sought-after—and expensive, starting at AUS$250, and I saw a bottle in another shop for AUS$4,100.

Are they worth it? Production is very small, although it is increasing as it has been taken over by a family in Melbourne. But, even so, that increase has seen bottling rise from two to three barrels a week to eight. The most expensive whiskeys come from single barrels aged for 16 years—a long time to wait for revenue and to free up space and barrels, for a small amount of final production (a few hundred bottles). The barrels are always previously used and sourced from various wine and bourbon producers, which adds to the individual character of each whisky. I personally can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a whisky, however good, but I understand why collectors go to great lengths to find these bottles: the overall style is supple, smooth, with a gentle spicy mouthfeel rather than being up-front and obvious which makes them whiskeys to enjoy over a long period of time.

Highlight

Single Cask American Oak Tawny: from used American oak barrels which had held tawny wine (the Australian term for domestic “port”), this was my favourite of the six whiskeys I tasted. This is in part because I love the dried fruit, sweet aromas that come from a fortified red wine, but also because they integrate so well with the subtle, round sweetness of both American oak and an aged whisky, as well as balancing the cereal aromas from the grains used in the original fermentation (✪✪✪✪✪✪✪).

To bring the conversation back to wine, these whiskeys reflected the cool but varied climate of Tasmania. The climate is nowhere near as warm as Kentucky for US whiskey; even though Sullivan's Cove use barrels that have had bourbon aged in them, the style is completely different. But the climate is not as cool as Scotland; the whiskeys are fruitier and smoother. And this goes back to the sparkling wines, which I think are the most consistently high quality of all the wines on the island. They don't taste like Champagne or England or any other region: they taste of Tasmania.