The home of Australia's most popular wine

The Riverland region surrounds the River Murray from Blanchetown, through Renmark to the Victorian border.

The Riverland accounts for around half of South Australia’s total crush and around one quarter of Australia’s production. Internationally, the Riverland is responsible for a major percentage of all Australian wine exported overseas. The Riverland wine region has approximately 1,300 winegrape growers who in 2005 produced over 480,000 tonnes of grapes.

The Riverland's wonderful climate, its commitment to viticultural quality through ‘world’s best practices’ in irrigation, clone selection, and vineyard management techniques produce excellent fruit. Its innovative winemaking enables the Region to handle volumes of fruit and produce wines that people love to drink and are winning local and international awards.

The majority of the wine produced from Riverland grapes is sold by Constellation Wines, Boar's Rock Wines, Australian Vintage, Pernod Ricard Australia, Angove’s, Kingston Estate, Salena Estate, and Thachi Wines.

The Riverland also has an emerging boutique wine industry with wineries such as Bonneyview Wines, Pennyfield Wines, Torambre, Omersown, O’Donohoe’s and Mallee Estate achieving good local/domestic sales, and who are now looking to increase export sales. A number of the aforementioned wineries offer wine sales and tastings through Cellar Door Sales outlets and visitors to the Riverland can follow the Riverland Wine and Food Trail. A must see destination on the map is the multi award winning Banrock Station Wine and Wetland Centre.

The main grape varieties grown in the Riverland are Chardonnay, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Promising varieties to look out for include Petit Verdot and Viognier The Riverland is renowned for its generous fruit driven wines with Chardonnay being particularly suited to the warm growing conditions of the Riverland. The Riverland boasts more Chardonnay plantings than the combined total of other regions in S.A.

The vintage period in the Riverland generally runs from mid- January to late April.

Riverland Wine Week held in October sees the coming together of the whole Riverland Wine Industry to celebrate its successes and to plan for the future. Events included in the Riverland Wine Week are the Riverland Wine Show, Riverland Wine Industry Technical Seminar ('Some Like it Hot') and the Riverland Wine and Food Festival.

For a more detailed examination of the Riverland wine industry, the Council is pleased to offer the Riverland Wine Industry Regional Profile 2005 for download (590kb, pdf).