#Rutherglen is one of Australia’s oldest wine regions, and it is definitely one of our favourites. Rutherglen is best known for Durif, a dark, bold red wine, and gloriously complex fortified wines, but let us assure you, the region has so, so much more to offer (including some of Australia’s friendliest wine experiences – imagine a cellar door where people are genuinely glad to see you, rather than tyring to hurry you through a tasting!) If you haven’t visited Rutherglen, you’re missing a real wine gem. When you do go to visit, here are our favourite stops. (For extensive winery reviews on these and many others, check out winehuntersworld.com/wineries)
* With its history tracing back into the 1800s, Campbells is one of Australia’s founding wineries. And all those years of experiences have led to one of Australia’s best overall ranges of wines. The diversity of wines produced by Campbells is mind-boggling. They cover all the Australian standards like Shiraz and Cab Sav, but they also produce a host of lesser known varietal likes Trebbiano and Fiano. Amazingly, they’re all great wines! And best of all, Campbells keeps its customers front of mind with better than fair prices.
* Chambers Rosewood is one of Australia’s two best producers of fortified wines. The flavours Chambers coaxes out of these fortifieds is nothing short of stunning. We have been saying for a long time that fortified wines can access a range of flavours that you simply can’t find in table wines. If you visit Chambers Rosewood, you will see exactly what we mean in the most glorious fashion (and in the good hands of some of wine’s friendliest people).
* Warrabilla stands out as perhaps Rutherglen’s most unique and certainly its most stylistic winery. Here you will find big, and we mean really big wines that are extraordinarily flavoursome – polished and juicy. It’s such a refreshing change from the nondescript schlock that litters the isles of most large liquor stores. These wines sing out with great jubilee the expression of their underlying fruit varietal. If you’ve ever wanted to know exactly what Shiraz or Grenache or Durif or Cab Sav are meant to taste like on the fruit alone, you won’t find a truer expression than right here.
We just love John Gehrig. We love everything about the place! Its owners are welcoming and unpretentious people, and the wines are so damn good. In a region well known for powerful red wines, John Gehrig also nails the critical element of balance (in fairness, JG sources fruit from Rutherglen as well as the nearby (but cooler) King Valley). These are just such well-made and satisfying wines. Shiraz, Durif, and we most especially love what John Gehrig achieves with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cab Sav blends … yum, yum, yum.
Morris Wines is probably Australia’s most iconic producer of fortified wines, and for good reason. Unless you’ve sat down with a glass, you really can’t begin to comprehend the nuance and range of flavours that Morris can coax out of a Muscat. It’s like drinking a rainbow – there’s really no other way to say it. And Morris also produces an interesting range of table wines, like its stand out Blue Imperial, also known as Cinsault – a variety too little seen in Australia.
And finally, if you’re making a weekend trip of it, we also highly endorse All Saints, Anderson Winery, and Scion. All Saints has a tight range of fantastic wines and boasts the region’s most beautiful (by a wide margin) cellar door. Run by a passionate father-daughter duo, Anderson producers very serious wines (don’t miss their Dream-weaver Durif!) And Scion is probably Rutherglen’s coolest and quirkiest winery – leading the Rutherglen charge into the new era and well worth checking out.
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