Australia's best wines – and all the varietal category winners from the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion




This comprehensive guide to Australia's best wines consists entirely of top-scoring wines included within the 2026 Companion. Price is not a factor in these lists; quality is the only consideration.



Explore the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion top-rated wines


Over 7000 wines were tasted for this year’s Halliday Wine Companion. We painstakingly whittled this down to a shortlist of 165 wines to be tasted at our annual awards judging in March. Seventeen brackets were set before nine of the very best wine critics in Australia. They tasted blind, each wine masked to conceal its maker. The best of the best of these brackets were repoured to determine Red Wine of the Year, White Wine of the Year, and the prestigious award, Wine of the Year.


Find all the varietal winners here, plus lists of all the top-rated wines for each category. These lists work best as a quick reference though, for the tasting note and accompanying information found on each wine review is the best guide as to whether a wine is for you. Halliday members have access to all of this detailed information, helping them pick the right wine for them, no matter their preferred style, variety or price point. 


The 2026 Halliday Wine Companion Awards

Explore the winners
The best wines in Australia