Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wines

Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wines 2024: Best red wines under $50

Name: Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wines 2024: Best red wines under $50
Brand: Halliday Wine Companion

By The Tasting Team

10 Oct, 2024

These are the best Australian red wines under $50, as featured in the Halliday Top 100 Wines 2024.

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Best Australian red wines under $50

We know how important value-for-money wines are, and this can be especially important when it comes to red wines. So, this list highlights the best red wines under $50. Thanks to the breadth of outstanding winemaking in Australia, when it comes to value red wines, there's no need to compromise on quality. Looking for the best $50 bottle of red wine? These 20 wines have been rated 95, 96 or 97 points by the Halliday Tasting Team.

This list is filled with names of reliable producers. There's shiraz from two Hunter Valley icons, Tyrrell's and Thomas Wines. Try the $30 cabernet sauvignon from Kate Goodman, 2024 Winemaker of the Year, at Coonawarra's Penley Estate. Bondar Wines' Midnight Hour Shiraz will give you change from a 50 dollar note and is 97 points. Then there's the new kids on the block, Gertie Wines (who submitted to the Companion for the first time this year) and Dilworth & Allain, shortlisted for the 2025 Best New Winery award.

We can confidently say this list includes some of the best Australian red wine under $50. They're priced between $28 and $48.

2023 Aravina Estate Limited Release Tempranillo, Margaret River

Winemaker Ryan Aggiss is doing cool things with non-mainstream varieties, ie. non-French ones, and this tempranillo is a prime example. Firstly, and most importantly, it’s absolutely delicious. It’s floral and spicy full of red and black cherries, sarsaparilla and a snip of fresh herbs. The palate is just shy of medium bodied, it feels light and bright with juicy acidity, full of tempranillo’s stealth-like tannins, you think they’re missing then whoosh – they take charge. One of my favourite wines. – Jane Faulkner

2021 Balnaves of Coonawarra Shiraz, Coonawarra

Fruit is sourced from the Paulownia and Vortmann Vineyards. Fermented with 28 per cent whole bunches and matured in large-format French oak (34 per cent new) for 13 months. A bouquet of baked boysenberries, mulberries and ripe cherries followed by a concoction of baking spices, caraway, vanilla and cardamom. Pumpernickel bread, pressed prune pits and black olive. The acidity is perfectly poised like a tiger ready to spring with silky tannins that draw out the length of flavour on the palate. It is wholesome in its generosity and yet svelte in its frame. A class act and astonishing for the price. – Shanteh Wale

2022 Bondar Wines Midnight Hour Shiraz, McLaren Vale

This is the yin to the Violet Hour’s yang, coming off red/brown clay over limestone from two blocks, planted 1960 and ’90 (the Violet Hour is mainly sandy soils). Open canopies lead to ‘ripe’ stems, with 100 per cent whole-bunch ferments employed; 15 months' seasoned French oak. Dark and brooding, though not heavy, rippling with dark fruits, dried cherry, olive, blackstrap licorice, thyme, toasted rye, coal dust, anise, clove, white pepper…a swell of dark red cherry and sour plum enlivening the palate. This may be more darkly wrought than the Violet Hour, but it’s not heavy, with a slinky suppleness of texture and assertive natural tannin. Truly exceptional. – Marcus Ellis

2021 Campbells The Sixties Block, Rutherglen

What were regarded as experimental varieties in the 1960s are thought-provoking exemplars in the 2020s. The exciting mix of Spanish, Portuguese and French grapes (cabernet sauvignon, carignan, souzao, tinta madeira, tinta amarella and tinta cão, among many others) slurp up the Rutherglen sun and emerge in the glass rounded, spice-fuelled, wild herbal–edged, licorice-enhanced and black fruited with plenty of savoury, earthy intrigue. Fine, smooth tannins marry with discreet oak to energise the tastebuds. Bravo! – Jeni Port

2022 Charles Melton Wines Domaine Sophie Claire GSR Grenache Shiraz Riesling, Barossa Valley

Here, four per cent riesling was co-fermented with grenache and shiraz; matured for 18 months in French and American oak, 10 per cent new. I like the freshness of this wine. Look. I think I might be going bonkers, but I'm sure I can see some lime in that bright acid profile. Which would make sense. Outside of that, the fruit – all red cherry, cranberry and red, plummy stuff – is gorgeous. Dotted with spice and citrus blossom tones, some nice space and detail within, with gentle tannins and that fresh acidity livening this up and providing velocity. Great medium-bodied drinking. – Dave Brookes

2022 Coulter Wines C2 Sangiovese, Mount Lofty Ranges Zone

There's a seriousness to this sangiovese that takes it to new heights. It remains drinkable and fun, thanks to its cherry-spiced persona, but its dry, sheeted, mouth-puckering tannin and emphatic length really do set it apart. It's almost as if this sangiovese has its heart set on nebbiolo, such is the shape of its palate and the firmness of its structure. – Campbell Mattinson

2022 Dilworth & Allain Franklinford Vineyard Dolcetto, Macedon Ranges

This is currently my favourite Aussie dolcetto because it has a core of excellent fruit yet depth and detail, too. An enticing dark purple hue; heady with florals and spice, laden with summer blue fruits and blackberries, some cherry compote, too, with snips of fresh mint and basil. It’s bursting with flavour across the palate, which is all tangy and juicy with crunchy, minerally-acidity. It’s refreshing and can be chilled in warmer weather, yet it’s not simple – plenty of detail here. Bravo. – Jane Faulkner

2022 Gertie Wines Cabernet Franc, Clare Valley

Winemaker Ben Max loves cabernet franc, and this is his treatise. It's a spectacular version, nailing the balance between green herbal elements and more ripe, plummy characters. Here we have red-fleshed plum, a touch of rosehip tea, some green olive elements, a bit of eucalyptus and turned earth, white pepper and fennel in both the bouquet and palate. The texture is superb, succulence is writ large and nutty tannins build into a fine but definitive pucker, shaping and toning the wine up. Pretty sensational, as it goes. – Mike Bennie

2021 Kay Brothers Cuthbert Cabernet Sauvignon, McLaren Vale

This is the 10th bottling of this wine, which honours Cuthbert ‘Cud’ Kay. Modest of alcohol, by regional standards, and raised in French oak hogsheads, this is flavourful though with a relatively elegant pitch in terms of weight, of heft. It’s still packed with signature house and varietal intensity in blackberry, cassis, mulberry, bay laurel, clove, anise, tobacco, iodine and a certain rugged earthiness. Tannins are aptly insistent, drive and length impeccable. Patience, however, is required. – Marcus Ellis

2023 Medhurst YRB, Yarra Valley

A blend of 50/50 per cent pinot noir/shiraz, destemmed and co-fermented, then matured for eight months in aged French puncheons. A super-bright crimson purple. I can't imagine anywhere else on the planet where a blend of these two varieties would work so well. This early pacesetter keeps on delivering the goods. Red and black fruits, mountain herbs and a little baked earth lead onto the palate, which is simultaneously juicy yet delicate and harmonious. A very enticing wine. – Philip Rich

2022 Occam's Razor Shiraz, Heathcote

A wine that captures the Heathcote shiraz personality so well: bold in colour and character and yet exuding an innate elegance. Fruit, oak and tannins work in harmony right from the get-go. Heady aromas of blackberry, bramble, aniseed, sage and dried cranberry. On the palate an earthy, mineral element combines with fine-cut tannins to control the 15 per cent alc., meshing nicely with ripe fruit and gentle, spiced oak to produce a seamless beauty of a shiraz. – Jeni Port

2023 Paralian Wines Marmont Vineyard Grenache, McLaren Vale

Blewitt Springs grenache planted to Holocene sand in 1960; fermented in 135-year-old wax-lined concrete fermenters with 20 per cent whole bunches; about 18 days on skins; matured in a 2500L 17-year-old French oak vat for 10 months. Newly bottled, this is just so engagingly present at this early stage, though the architecture is there for a long life. Cranberry, pink peppercorn, freeze-dried raspberry, rosehip, raspberry leaf tea, sumac, cinnamon, white pepper and ground dried orange peel. It’s got grip and tension, so natural of feel, with a savoury line that connects to fruit, both bundled together seamlessly. This is stunning. – Marcus Ellis

2021 Penley Estate Tolmer Cabernet Sauvignon, Coonawarra

Matured in French oak (20 per cent new) for 12 months. Prepare to get carried away on a Ribena cloud as boysenberries float on by and dark cherry and beetroot juice waver underneath you. The purity of fruit is remarkable with judicious oak cradling in support. Soft licorice, glittering black sandy tannins, kombu and a slurp to the up-tempo acidity. Remarkable in its staying power on the palate, this will age very well. – Shanteh Wale

2022 Scotchmans Hill Bellarine Peninsula Shiraz, Geelong

Another excellent and well-priced shiraz from the team at Scotchmans Hill. This one opens with red and black fruits, freshly cracked pepper and hints of incense and allspice. Elegant, medium bodied and persistent on the palate before finishing with subtle, silky tannins. A pleasure to drink from the get-go. – Philip Rich

2022 Sinapius Esmé, Tasmania

Geez, Tasmanian gamay is lovely! Close planted, whole clusters, carbonic maceration, wild ferment and maturation in old foudre for eight months. Vivid and vital with a tonic-like vibe. It's all airy red cherry, cranberry and redcurrants with a struck flinty complexity, souk-like spice, pressed wildflowers and scattered amaro and mountain herbs. Some gamey and grilled nutty nuance too, finishing all meaty, spacious and funky. Wild and wonderful drinking. – Dave Brookes

2022 Spinifex Papillon, Barossa Valley

I'm a huge fan of Peter Schell's Papillon, this year a blend of 87/13 per cent cinsault/grenache. It's fragrant and pretty with a spaciousness and sense of detail that predates the majority of the wines that today present in a pleasant vin de soif style. Red fruited and spicy with notes of dried meats and citrus blossom, dried herbs and cranberry. An oh-so-easy-to-drink style with chalky tannins and red apple-like acidity. It's a ripper. – Dave Brookes

2022 Taltarni Reserve des Pyrenees, Pyrenees

Reserve de Pyrenees is a highly aromatic blend of grenache, sangiovese, touriga, mourvèdre, petit verdot, cabernet sauvignon and shiraz. The result is a harmonious, spicy, dark-fruited wine of excellent depth, flow and flavour. Its supporting tannin and integrated acidity make it an excellent companion to food. One could also tuck it away for a few years. It is a serious, commendable wine at an affordable price. – Toni Paterson MW

2022 Thomas Wines The Cote Individual Vineyard Shiraz, Hunter Valley

Generosity of spirit, rounded blue fruits, flirtatious oak accents and a hint of tuberose. Perfectly medium weight with a sweet-fruit core. Stylish winemaking. Astonishing value. – Toni Paterson MW

2022 Tyrrell’s Wines Estate Grown Shiraz, Hunter Valley

A blend from the dry-grown Short Flat, Weinkeller, NVC and Old Hut Vineyards. Fabulous mid-palate density with excellent colour and framing tannin. It is a serious wine at an affordable price. Classical in structure with a perfect mix of bright fruit and savouriness. – Toni Paterson MW

2022 View Wine Shiraz, Granite Belt

This wine spends time in French and American oak, though both seem to have melted nicely into the dark cherry, rich raspberry and black pepper/wild herb characters that dominate this wine so well. Medium bodied, just, with satiny texture, a little burr of silty tannin, cool acidity, a lift and floral perfume in both palate and bouquet. It's a sensual red, texture moreish, aromas and flavours inviting. Its silky appeal and spicy elements coupled to the lithe tannin profile speak more fluently of syrah, perhaps, but whatever hits your glass from this bottle is stunning. – Mike Bennie

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