4.4 Syrah / Shiraz

Syrah, called Shiraz in Australia and several other countries, is a bold, spicy, deeply coloured black grape that produces two strikingly different styles depending on climate. WSET Level 2 uses Syrah/Shiraz to illustrate, more clearly than almost any other variety, how climate shapes the same grape into contrasting wines.

Grape Characteristics

Syrah is a thick-skinned, deeply coloured grape that produces full-bodied, richly structured red wines wherever it is grown. Its flavour profile shifts noticeably with climate, which is the central idea to master for this grape, more so than for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, or Pinot Noir. Like Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah has small, thick-skinned berries and a high skin-to-juice ratio, giving deep colour and substantial tannin in almost every growing region, regardless of climate.

Typical Syrah/Shiraz structure:

The Cool-Climate Style: Northern Rhône

In the Northern Rhône of France, Syrah is grown on steep, terraced hillsides in a relatively cool, continental climate. The resulting wines are savoury and peppery, with firm tannin, medium-to-full body, and a distinctive black pepper spice note alongside dark fruit, violets, and, especially with age, smoky or meaty complexity. Hermitage, on a famous granite hill overlooking the Rhône River, produces the region's most powerful, age-worthy Syrah, often considered the grape's ultimate expression and capable of decades of positive bottle development. Crozes-Hermitage, the largest appellation in the Northern Rhône and surrounding Hermitage, offers more approachable, still peppery Syrah at accessible prices, making it a common everyday introduction to the Northern Rhône style. Côte-Rôtie, meaning "roasted slope," is prized for elegant, aromatic Syrah, traditionally co-fermented with a small amount of the white grape Viognier to add perfume and soften the wine's structure, a practice unique among Syrah's major appellations and one of the few instances at this level where a red and white grape are fermented together rather than blended after the fact. Outside the Northern Rhône proper, Syrah also appears in blends further south in the Languedoc, including the Minervois appellation, where it is typically blended with Grenache and other Southern Rhône varieties to produce warmer-climate, fruit-forward reds quite different in character from Hermitage or Côte-Rôtie.

The Warm-Climate Style: Australia

In Australia, where the grape is called Shiraz, warmer growing conditions produce a dramatically different wine: ripe, jammy black and blue fruit (blackberry, plum, sometimes a chocolate or liquorice note), softer-seeming tannin, fuller body, and higher alcohol, generally without the assertive black pepper character of Northern Rhône Syrah. Much of Australia's everyday Shiraz is labelled broadly as South Eastern Australia, a large, multi-region zone that allows blending from a wide geographic area to deliver a consistent, reliable, fruit-forward style at accessible prices for the export market. At the premium end, Barossa Valley, in South Australia, is Australia's most famous Shiraz region, celebrated for old vines, some over a century old and still producing small, concentrated crops, yielding intensely concentrated, full-bodied, richly fruited wines. Hunter Valley, in New South Wales, produces a distinctive style of Shiraz that, despite a warm and notably humid climate, can show a more medium-bodied, earthy character than Barossa, reflecting different soils and a long winemaking tradition dating back to the nineteenth century, making it one of the oldest continuously producing wine regions in Australia.

Climate as the Key Idea

The Northern Rhône versus Australia contrast is the clearest illustration in the whole Level 2 syllabus of how climate drives style within a single grape variety. Cooler regions preserve acidity and produce savoury, peppery, more restrained wines; warmer regions push ripeness further, reducing acidity and pepper character while increasing fruit ripeness, body, and alcohol. The same logic that separates Northern Rhône Syrah from Barossa Shiraz also explains regional variation within Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Pinot Noir, so mastering it here pays off across the whole exam and across other grapes covered later in this guide. It is also worth noting that the choice of label term is largely geographic convention rather than a strict legal rule: Syrah is used across most of France and much of the rest of the world, while Shiraz remains the near-universal choice in Australia and is also common in South Africa.

Exam Focus

Remember three anchor points: Syrah is the French name and Shiraz the Australian name for the same grape; the Northern Rhône (Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, Côte-Rôtie) makes cooler, peppery, savoury styles; and Australia (South Eastern Australia broadly, Barossa Valley and Hunter Valley specifically) makes warmer, riper, jammier styles. Minervois shows Syrah's role as a blending grape in warmer southern France, distinct from its varietal expression further north, and Côte-Rôtie's use of Viognier is a useful, exam-friendly detail that sets it apart from every other Syrah appellation covered at this level.