After a quality bottle for a special occasion? We’ve got you.
When it comes to our favourite go-to wines, we’re loud and proud about so many of them giving us change from $20. With loads of different wines punching way above their weight, there are brilliant options for all kinds of occasions – dinner parties included. But every now and again, we need to spend more on a single bottle. It might be to celebrate a special event, or maybe you’re buying for someone who really knows their wine. Whatever the case, sometimes you want a bottle to shout, ‘This person really knows their stuff and, wow, they’re so generous, too!’ Or something along those lines.
Once you start browsing above your usual price point, it can feel daunting to choose between varieties, styles and regions because the options are seemingly endless. But if you have a particular budget in mind, we’ve pulled together a selection of highlights that will absolutely get the job done – and then some. To help you find the best wines under $100, we’ve selected a handful of standouts in a few key price brackets across bubbles, whites and reds to make the decisions easier.
Our criteria? These are the types of wines that we think you can take or gift for any occasion and come out on top. They are all top producers and excellent examples of their respective regions, varieties and styles. You can even pretend you chose the bottle yourself.
If you’re after a great wine but don’t want to overshoot the gesture or gift, look to the under-$50 bottles – a price bracket loaded with value, in our opinion. Many wineries have a range that sits above their entry-level wines, and these commonly fall into this price point. Here, you can expect clear expressions of the grape variety and region in wines that have often been treated in a more involved way.
This may mean the wine has been picked from a single vineyard – as you’ll find in the Tyrrell’s Stevens Semillon, which is an excellent showcase of this underrated variety. A wine might also spend more time in oak than the average, which adds complexity and depth. The following under-$50 wines are all from producers with serious pedigree, offering excellent examples of what they do best.
Capping the spend at $80? Get excited. This is where you can definitely expect to find single-vineyard wines as well as others picked from a special block of one great vineyard. This extra attention, and the fact these wines are made from limited grapes, drives up the price, but the quality is unmistakable.
Rosé Champagne often costs more than other styles, but the Nicolas Feuillate offers serious value here. For a gift with impact or the ultimate contribution to a special dinner, you can’t go past the magnum of the 2020 Pewsey Vale Riesling – six years of age has developed some richness, but it’s still bright and zippy. For chardonnay fans, there’s a top Margaret River expression from Cape Mentelle or a Premier Cru Chablis. And in the reds, we’re going straight for the Tassie pinot by Freycinet or Henschke’s cabernet blend, but they’re all seriously impressive wines.
If you can stretch the budget to $100, you’ve got some big decisions to make. You can expect to get an absolute benchmark at this price, and the following wines are just that. From a ready-aged Hunter Valley semillon from iconic winery Mount Pleasant that’s worth every cent and a riesling from one of its finest producers to a Yarra Valley chardonnay that demands to be savoured, these are incredible whites.
The reds are just as compelling. There’s a top-tier Yarra Valley pinot and super premium cabernet blend from Majella in Coonawarra, and there’s even a Barolo for anyone curious about this coveted Italian wine. And while there are plenty of top traditional shiraz at this price (ask the in-store team for their picks), we’ve gone for a Victorian example that’s cool-climate elegance and spice at its very best.
