Western Victoria is a viticultural zone located, rather obviously, in the western half of Victoria, in eastern Australia. To be more accurate, and to fit more completely with its northern neighbor, North West Victoria, the zone is better described as South West Victoria. The zone's finer viticultural land is located away from the coastline on the northern edge of the zone, where the Henty, Grampians and Pyrenees wine regions are located – the latter two named after, and located around, the zone's main hills.
The Western Victoria zone encompasses the historic cities of Ballarat and Ararat, with their traditional streets of Victorian buildings which tell of the region's gold-mining history. To the west are the jagged peaks of the Grampians National Park, while to the north lie the gentler slopes of the misleadingly-named Pyrenees. South and west of Ballarat are expansive coastal plains, which reach right to the Southern Ocean coastline. They culminate in the Great Otway National Park and the Otway Ranges, which lead up to the southern edge of Geelong. This southern end of the zone experiences lower temperatures and higher rainfall than almost any part of Victoria, and is not known for its wineries. The northern part of the zone, however, has a warmer, drier climate and has long proved itself as a wine-producing area: the wine industry here dates back to the 1850s.
The long-established western Victorian vineyards of Seppelt Great Western and Best's Great Western have been joined in recent decades by a new raft of boutique wineries, nearly all producing cool climate wine styles in this, one of Australia's coldest viticultural zones. Sparkling wine has been a major specialty for the zone, and it was in the Grampians' Great Western sub-region that the iconic (if polarizing) sparkling Shiraz wine style was first developed back in the 1890s. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (the two better-known Champagne grapes) top the list of varieties grown here, with Pinot Gris also figuring in the inventory.
High-quality table wines have also been consistently produced in Western Victoria, with cedar-scented, highly perfumed Cabernet Sauvignon leading the way, followed by spicy northern-Rhone-style Shiraz with a telling hint of mint or eucalypt. Elegant, restrained styles of Chardonnay, and citrusy, crisp Rieslings and Sauvignon Blancs are also now beginning to emerge from Western Victorian fruit. Larger wine-producing businesses show little interest in the region, choosing instead to focus on the higher yields and more cost-effective vineyards at the northern end of the state.
