Best white wines under $40
Affordability in wine has always been important at Halliday, and this list proves that you don't need to compromise on quality when it comes to drinking some of Australia's best white wines.
Starting at $20, these 20 wines comfortably come in at less than 40 bucks (and they're all rated 95+). We know there is no shortage of good Australian riesling, but these six examples span just $26–$36. In this category, the battle for best Australian chardonnay takes us to the Adelaide Hills, Orange, and Upper Goulburn. Please take note of the outstanding value of Hoddles Creek Estate's Wickhams Road Yea Valley Chardonnay ($20!).
For those keen to expand their palates, the grüner veltliner comes from Mount Barker in the Great Southern, the Hunter Valley and the Adelaide Hills. There's a chenin blanc from McLaren Vale, and fiano from the Alpine Valleys and the Hilltops. Tahbilk's always-reliable marsanne is just $22, there's a pinot blanc from Margaret River, a Hunter Valley staple, a pinot gris from Geelong, and a blend of grenache gris, picpoul and clairette from Coriole.
2021 About Time Echunga Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills
From a site sitting at 400m above sea level, this is wild fermented and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Just 130 cases made. It's a coup here. Textural white wine, crisp and chalky, densely packed with just-ripe nectarine and pineapple fruit characters, ginger, limey acidity, briny minerality, faint cashew and almond nuttiness and a lift of green mango piquancy. It's wonderfully aromatic, imbued with florals and sea spray and citrus fruit notes. There's a sense of compactness and excellent length here too. It's a very complete wine, refreshing and bright yet layered with savouriness. Actually, quite outstanding. – Mike Bennie
95 points | $38 | Screwcap | 12.6% alc. | Drink to 2032 | Halliday profile | About Time | @about_time_wines
2022 Brash Higgins CHN Willamba Hill Vineyard Chenin Blanc, McLaren Vale
With a few 'quiet days on skins' and maturation in old oak, this packs plenty of flavour and detail for a wine picked this early. It’s headily lifted in a savoury way, with green hops, quince, cider apple, honey, hay, brine, preserved ginger, lime pickle, parsley seed and gentle floral notes. This is a nice use of skins, turning up the mineral feel, layering in chalkiness, of both flavour and feel, and working in concert with energetic acidity to make the palate as engagingly complex as the nose with good length of both flavour and mineral sapidity. – Marcus Ellis
95 points | $32 | Screwcap | 11.3% alc. | Drink to 2030 | Halliday profile | Brash Higgins | @brashhiggins
2022 Byrne Farm Chardonnay, Orange
Grown at 900m in altitude. The wine is alive with powdery sandstone, chalk and sparkler flint. Meringue, lemon curd and white peach skin. A hint of apple blossom and frangipani florals. The tension between enthusiastic acidity and fruit power is marvellous. This sits in a truly happy place with crystalline length and breadth across the palate. A sensation of flavours. – Shanteh Wale
96 points | $35 | Screwcap | 13% alc. | Drink to 2028 | Halliday profile | Byrne Farm | @byrnefarmwines
2023 Clarnette Wines Riesling, Grampians
You get intensity of fruit flavour, and then you get a stony aspect to the finish. This riesling is both moreish and sophisticated – the best combo. It tastes of lime juice and mandarin before heading into pebble and lime-leaf territory. It's excellent all around, the grip of the finish a welcome surprise. – Campbell Mattinson
95 points | $30 | Screwcap | 12% alc. | Drink to 2034 | Halliday profile | Clarnette Wines | @clarnettewines
2023 Coriole Sandalwood, McLaren Vale
50/45/5 per cent grenache gris/picpoul/clairette from the Sandalwood vineyard, a later ripening site in the McLaren Flat foothills. Pressed to concrete for co-fermentation, then racked off heavy lees and returned for nine months élevage. Such an exuberantly expressive nose at pitch-perfect ripeness, with rosy skinned apples, lemon balm, raw quince, orange peel and tart pomelo. Tension defines the palate, with vigorous natural acidity and a moreish netting of pithiness combined with a gravelly minerality to deliver this dry, sapid and deeply layered. Stunning! – Marcus Ellis
95 points | $34 | Screwcap | 13% alc. | Drink to 2029 | Halliday profile | Coriole | @coriole
2023 Eldorado Road Dreamfields Fiano, Alpine Valleys
Fermentation in seasoned French barriques, 50 per cent wild yeast, five months' maturation in oak on full lees. A natural in Victoria's north east, fiano shines even in challenging vintages. Complex, textural, layered and oh-so approachable, the '23 brings seductive, restrained aromas before launching into a concentrated palate rich in white peach, stone fruits, baked spiced apple, almond meal and citrus. A splash of ginger and grilled hazelnut is an added touch. All class. – Jeni Port
96 points | $35 | Screwcap | 13.2% alc. | Drink to 2028 | Halliday profile | Eldorado Road | @eldoradoroad
2023 Hentley Farm Wines Mt Crawford Vineyard Riesling, Eden Valley
Riesling sourced from the high, cool climes of Mt Crawford at the southern end of the Barossa Valley. Pale with green flashes and aromas of crunchy apple, freshly squeezed lime and white peach with hints of crushed quartz, white flowers, freshly cut fennel, lemon sherbet and citrus blossom. Tight and focused with a fresh limey tang, the merest slink of texture, plenty of minerally velocity and a crisp, sapid finish that gets the saliva working overtime. Wowee! – Dave Brookes
97 points | $36 | Screwcap | 11% alc. | Drink to 2038 | Halliday profile | Hentley Farm Wines | @hentleyfarm
2023 Hoddles Creek Estate Wickhams Road Yea Valley Chardonnay, Upper Goulburn
A light, bright, green gold. With its aromas of stone fruits, a touch of grilled nuts and a hint of matchstick, you have to wonder how winemaker Franco D'Anna can make a wine this complex at the price! The palate is still pretty tightly wound, and this impeccably made wine finishes satisfying and long. – Philip Rich
95 points | $20 | Screwcap | 12.5% alc. | Drink to 2026 | Halliday profile | Hoddles Creek Estate | @hoddlescreekestate
2023 Hungerford Hill Fiano, Hilltops
An outstanding fiano with energy, weight, length and layers. Pure, inviting aromas of passionfruit and green guava, followed by glacé pear and custard apple flavours with welcomed savouriness and lively spice. While the palate is full, textured and satisfying, it has pleasing phenolics and zesty acidity, giving the palate freshness and form. – Toni Paterson MW
95 points | $27 | Screwcap | 12.5% alc. | Drink to 2026 | Halliday profile | Hungerford Hill | @hungerfordhill
2023 Lenton Brae Wines Pinot Blanc, Margaret River
Fermented wild in French oak hogsheads and puncheons (the former comprising 17 per cent new, stopping just shy of too much of a good thing). All that adds to the light gold hue, plus weight and extra depth on the palate. Floral and fragrant with lots of citrus tones from blossom, lime and grapefruit flavours to a salted lemon/saline character. Savoury and moreish with a briny acidity lifting everything and keeping this tight and a slight phenolic grip adds another dimension. Impressive. – Jane Faulkner
95 points | $32 | Screwcap | 12.5% alc. | Drink to 2028 | Halliday profile | Lenton Brae Wines | @lentonbraewine
2023 Lowboi Grüner Veltliner, Mount Barker
Pound for pound, one of the best white wines out of Great Southern. It’s concentrated and tightly wound, imbued with quinine and gingery elements offset with green apple, salt bush and cucumber notes. The vibrancy is superb here, the texture quartz-like with chalky elements and a general sense of minerality shining through. Brilliant drinkability, a textural white of complexity, interest and sheer high quality. An outstanding wine that feels crafted and effortless in the same breath. – Mike Bennie
95 points | $35 | Screwcap | 12.5% alc. | Drink to 2030 | Halliday profile | Lowboi Wines | @lowboiwines
2023 Mitchell Watervale Riesling, Clare Valley
Flavour. Texture. Precision. Poise. A scintillating riesling of strong regional character, yet details of citrusy fruit, saline minerality, faint nutty savouriness and talc-like textural pucker. Fantastic. It's a highly perfumed expression with extreme length, vitality and freshness with drinkability now and a sense that time in the cellar will bode very, very well. Straight up delicious, with plenty going on. Mitchell delivers the goods with this variety, and the 2023 release is a belter. Kudos. – Mike Bennie
95 points | $28 | Screwcap | 12.55% alc. | Drink to 2035 | Halliday profile | Mitchell | @mitchellwines
2023 Mount Pleasant Estate Grown Semillon, Hunter Valley
The fruit is crushed to the press, settled and racked to tank for a cold ferment and lees ageing. Scented white flowers and lemony freshness with a cleansing palate. The fruit has good integrity, and the mid-palate has pleasing texture and breadth, plus soft, rounded edges. It is a harmonious, balanced drink with a beautiful limey core. Excellent value. – Toni Paterson MW
95 points | $30 | Screwcap | 11% alc. | Drink to 2028 | Halliday profile | Mount Pleasant | @mountpleasantwines
2023 Ravensworth Regional Riesling, Canberra District
Fruit sourced from the Canberra District including estate-grown and the Hilltops region. Then, as is the Bryan Martin way, there’s some skin contact to bolster texture and fine phenolics before it all settles in vessels of concrete, ceramic and seasoned foudre. This is something else and delicious. Heady aromatics wafts of lemon blossom, ginger flower and spices, yet the palate steals the show. Textural, waxy, stony and complex with a silk-line of acidity all the way through. A cracking drink on its own or with food. – Jane Faulkner
96 points | $32 | Screwcap | 11.5% alc. | Drink to 2033 | Halliday profile | Ravensworth | @ravensworthwines
2023 Scotchmans Hill Bellarine Peninsula Pinot Gris, Geelong
Fermented and matured in both older French barriques (35 per cent) and tank. A very bright green gold. Pleasingly varietal with its scents of just ripened pear, apple and white flowers. Gently viscous, without being oily, this finishes with good freshness and verve. At this price, it should find a very appreciative audience. – Philip Rich
95 points | $25 | Screwcap | 13% alc. | Drink to 2027 | Halliday profile | Scotchmans Hill | @scotchmanshill
2023 Silkman Wines Grüner Veltliner, Hunter Valley
This is fabulous. Racy, flavoursome, varietal too. Chalky acidity and the tiniest touch of spice. The palate is compelling, long with perfect harmony; it has weight without overt fruitiness, which is always magic. Lovely citrus line. High class. – Toni Paterson MW
96 points | $30 | Screwcap | 11.9% alc. | Drink to 2026 | Halliday profile | Silkman Wines | @silkmanwines
2023 Stargazer Wine Coal River Valley Riesling, Tasmania
Single-vineyard riesling from Tea Tree in the Coal River Valley. Pale straw with green flashes, the wine announces its presence with a blast of pure lime, green apple and yuzu along with hints of jasmine, crushed stone, gingerbread, iced tea, mineral salts, beeswax and pressed flowers. Sam Connew's wines are all about detail and the 2023 release continues that theme. Impressive tension with a gentle swell of texture and a relentless mineral driveline pushing the wine forward. It's looking great. – Dave Brookes
95 points | $35 | Screwcap | 12% alc. | Drink to 2034 | Halliday profile | Stargazer Wine | @stargazerwine
2023 Tahbilk Marsanne, Nagambie Lakes
With extensive flooding and low yields, it is easy to see the 2023 Nagambie Lakes vintage as problematic. Shut your eyes, open your tastebuds, and there is life here and brightness of fruit and energy. Spring blossoms come to mind, the pure scent of honeysuckle and citrus. It's an early bloomer – or so it appears just before release – immediate and attractive right now (late Dec) in lemon sorbet tang, green apple and quince delivered with an emerging texture. Gotta say, I am enjoying it now, but I know what Tahbilk unwooded marsanne is capable of with bottle ageing. Never to be underestimated. – Jeni Port
95 points | $22 | Screwcap | 12.5% alc. | Drink to 2036 | Halliday profile | Tahbilk | @tahbilkwines
2023 Tar & Roses Lewis Riesling, Central Victoria Zone
Named in honour of the late, great winemaker Don Lewis, who made stunning rieslings for four decades. While the '23 vintage was challenging, you can't help but admire the quality of fruit, the pure, racy precision employed to deliver another top Lewis Riesling bursting in lime, grapefruit, green apple with a gentle flourish of lemongrass herbals, all tied beautifully in brisk acidity. Lipsmacking good. Will age a treat. – Jeni Port
96 points | $26 | Screwcap | 12.5% alc. | Drink to 2033 | Halliday profile | Tar & Roses | @tarandroseswine
2023 The Pawn Wine Co. Grüner Veltliner, Adelaide Hills
The aromas are lively, and the palate follows suit. There's joy to be found here. Green apples, grapefruit, blackcurrant bud and sweet spice notes put on a captivating show. Really, seriously, this is a white wine you should be drinking. – Campbell Mattinson95 points | $28 | Screwcap | 12% alc. | Drink to 2027 | Halliday profile | The Pawn Wine Co. | @thepawnwineco
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