Great Southern
The largest wine region in Western Australia at 17,131 square kilometres, holding five subregions with little in common. Cool and maritime at its southern edge, hot and continental inland.
Known for
- Riesling
- Shiraz
- Cabernet Sauvignon
- Chardonnay
Why Great Southern tastes the way it does
Enormous and internally varied, with five subregions: cool maritime country on the coast, and continental sites inland with big day-night swings. Riesling and Shiraz are its strongest suits and the Cabernet can be excellent.
January averages 20.2°C here and the growing season adds up to 1,724 heat units, which is moderate by Australian standards.
A short history
Planted from 1965, following the same Gladstones research that led to Margaret River. It has developed slowly and is still thinly settled with producers relative to its size.
Great Southern was registered as a protected wine name in 1996, which makes the boundary a legal definition rather than a marketing one.
What your house does to a bottle from Great Southern
A bottle from Great Southern ages at the rate its temperature sets, not at the rate the vintage chart says. Barello's model is the physical one: every 10°C above 13°C roughly doubles the rate, and at 25°C or more you are not ageing it, you are cooking it. Pick where you live and where the bottle actually sits.
Choose a city and a spot, and this line will tell you how much faster the bottle is ageing than it would in a cellar.
This is the same model that dates every bottle in Barello. Open the app to run it against your own wine. Or read how to store wine without a cellar, or the wine temperature chart.
Great Southern in numbers
| Planted vineyard | 2,479 ha | number 15 of 64 in Australia |
|---|---|---|
| Region area | 17,131 km² | 0.14% of it under vine |
| Grapes crushed | 6,677 t a year | 2.7 tonnes a hectare |
| January average | 20.2°C | number 12 coolest of 64 |
| Heat units | 1,724 | warmth added up over the growing season |
| Land in the GI rises | 0 to 1,083 m | the boundary, not where the vines are |
| Registered | 1996 | as a protected name |
Nearby
- Margaret River238 km west, 0.8°C warmer
Distances are between the registered centres of each region, so they are as the crow flies rather than as the road goes.
Where these numbers come from
Boundaries and figures: Wine Australia Geographical Indications register, used under CC BY 4.0. Climate figures are the register's own long-run averages, measured in the vineyard. The history and the tasting notes above are Barello's own.