In the past month, I sampled dozens of exciting new-wave reds, whites, and sparkling wines at four tastings in New York and San Francisco. Many of them are set to arrive on retail shelves this fall for the first time.

To shop the Oz wine renaissance, here’s what you need to know:

Regions
Australia has a vast range of climates, from warm Barossa Valley to multiple cool spots. Ocean-breeze-swept Margaret River is great cabernet and sauvignon blanc territory; the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne turns out elegant, silky pinot noirs and chardonnays, and the cold, isolated, southerly island of Tasmania (known as “Tassie”) is now a holy land for sparkling wine producers.

Australia’s dirt has some of the planet’s most diverse geology, which means wines from the same grape can be wildly different depending on where the vines are grown.

Grapes
This is not a one-varietal country. Yes, the shiraz grape is still Australia’s heart and soul, and lately we’ve seen some exciting variations on that theme: top winemakers such as Timo Mayer in the Yarra Valley have swapped the familiar bold, in-your-face format for savory, northern Rhone-style versions they often label syrah.

But there’s much more: Fresh, delicious cabernet, sexy pinot, lean, Chablis-like chardonnay, and especially succulent grenache—Australia has those, too. Italian grapes such as montepulciano, dolcetto, sangiovese, and vermentino are now having a moment and will figure in Australia’s future. Luke Lambert (see below) is all-in on Piemonte’s nebbiolo (“neb,” in Aussie slang).

Young Guns
Even in the oldest, most-established wine regions, new winemakers are stirring up revolutions.

Typical is a buzzed-about band of renegades clustered in the Adelaide Hills known as the Basket Range Collective. “We’re people who look like punks,” admitted James Erskine of Jauma winery, a former sommelier and musician, over lunch in San Francisco. “We want to challenge [Australia’s] wine paradigms.” To him, that means experimenting with trends now in vogue in the U.S. and U.K.—natural winemaking, pét-nats, and skin-fermented whites.

The other part of the revolution is that now you can actually find these wines in America and the U.K., as well as Japan, thanks to passionate indie importers, mostly Aussie expats. Five years ago, when he founded Little Peacock Imports in New York, Gordon Little offered nine wines. Today he sells more than 100.

“There the wines Aussies used to keep for themselves,” he says. “At the beginning, Americans were surprised they weren’t just shiraz and chardonnay. We have fianos, pét-nats, people want what’s new.”