Explore the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion top-rated wines

Over 7000 wines were tasted for this year’s Halliday Wine Companion. We painstakingly whittled this down to a shortlist of 160 wines to be tasted at our annual awards judging in March. 17 brackets were set before eight of the very best wine critics in Australia. They tasted blind, each wine masked to conceal its maker. The best of the best of these brackets were repoured to determine Red Wine of the Year, White Wine of the Year, Sparkling of the Year and the prestigious award, Wine of the Year.

Find all the varietal winners here, plus detailed lists of all the top-rated wines for each category.