The Difference between Syrah and Shiraz is principally in the name. To paraphrase Shakespeare, What's in a name? That which we call Shiraz is just the Australian title of France's Syrah.

The Syrah wine grape, a.k.a. Shiraz in Australia, is indigenous to the Rhone Valley, located in southeastern France. Syrah and Shiraz wines come from the exact same grape but, as is the case with wine in general, the style and flavor depend to no small extent on the different terroir and winemaking types it's developed under. The Rhone Valley itself has two quite distinct wines, in the northern and southern wine producing regions, with Syrah grapes.

Most Northern Rhone reds are made from 100% Syrah grapes and typically identified as being powerful, manly, meaty, leathery, strapping, vigorous, serious, peppery, bold, and so on. These wines are darkish, intense, and masculine wines that commonly need many years of maturity to subdue their strong tannins. The Hermitage appellation is the archetype of this style of Syrah wines, many of which are thought to be among the finest wines made in the world.

Typical Southern Rhone reds are blends of 3 varieties of grape: Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre. The most famous Southern Rhone appellation, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, permits the use of thirteen various grape varieties. These too are full colored and full-bodied reds, but these wines are more approachable than their northern neighbors, and personally, I prefer the Southern Rhones simply because I find them to be more food-friendly.

The Australian version of Syrah, Shiraz, is the country's most important red wine grape. It's additionally the most widely planted, with upwards of 100,000 acres of vineyard dedicated to it, which means that Australia is the world's second greatest producer of Syrah/Shiraz, following France. Australian Shiraz runs the gamut in terms of both value and quality. It not difficult to find some very drinkable Shiraz and Shiraz-Cabernet Sauvignon blends below $10.00. At the opposite extreme is Penfolds Grange. This is Australia's one genuinely iconic wine, and it can be as costly as a top tier Bordeaux or Burgundy. Performing a fast Google search, I found the Penfolds Grange 2005, the most current release at time of writing, at prices varying from $360.00 to $550.00 per bottle, and some of the classic vintages can cost thousands of dollars to add to your wine cellar. This is also a big, masculine wine (generally 100% Shiraz, but blended with a modest amount of Cabernet Sauvignon in some vintages) but it's quite distinct from Northern Rhone Syrah due to the different terroir and, no doubt, the fact that Penfolds Grange is aged in new American oak barrels.

California, with about 20,000 acres of Syrah vineyards, is the other important producer of Syrah varietals and blends. Of course, many superb Syrahs are vinified and produced in Napa Valley and Sonoma, but lately it is a big player in the Central Coast region--particularly in Paso Robles and Santa Barbara County. In fact, Wine Spectator designated a Paso Robles wine, Saxum Winery's James Berry Vineyard Paso Robles 2007, its wine of the year for 2010. Being a mix of Grenache, Mourvdre and Syrah, it's produced very much in the Southern Rhone mold. Two Santa Barbara County Syrahs also won slots in the top 100 list: Tensley's Syrah Santa Barbara County Colson Canyon Vineyard '08 and Zaca Mesa's Syrah Santa Ynez Valley 2006, at no. 17 and 29 respectively.

The Syrahs produced in Washington State have also recently been winning a lot of praise, both from wine critics and wine drinkers. The remaining major Syrah producing regions are South Africa (in which it's usually known as Shiraz, but labeled Syrah for wines created in the Rhone style), Argentina and Chile. Simply to make the matter a lot more confusing, there's one more varietal, grown almost exclusively in California, dubbed Petite Sirah or Petite Syrah which is really not Syrah, but actually a hybrid of Syrah and an obscure Rhone grape known as Peloursin. The hybrid was discovered in 1880 by a French botanist, Francois Durif, who named the new variety after himself. It's now referred to as Durif in Australia, and Petite Sirah in California and Israel.

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