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It was the grape that unleashed a stampede of critters on labels and millions of new wine drinkers. Now shiraz is proving something of a drag on the Australian wine industry.

Almost always a fruit-forward wine thanks to the sun-baked southern plains on which much of it is grown, shiraz has become synonymous not just with Australia, but with the cheap-and-cheerful category, which includes the Little Penguin and Yellow Tail. And that's an equation many Australian producers, still smarting from a grape glut and facing growing competition from low-cost wine producers such as Argentina and Chile, are no longer cheering about.

That's why Australia is preening for a makeover. Hoping to get out of the critter-wine rut, producers are targeting key export markets such as Canada with higher-end wines that belie the country's reputation for one-dimensional, generic fruit bombs: wines like earthy pinot noir from the cool Yarra Valley, champagne-style sparkling wines from Tasmania, rieslings from Clare Valley and grassy sauvignon blancs from Adelaide Hills.

"For us as a nation to survive going forward in the next 15-plus years, we need to get the regional message across," says James Gosper, brand manager for two premium Australian labels, Cape Mentelle and Green Point, at luxury house Moët Hennessy USA. "We've got such enormous diversity of climate, such an enormous diversity of soils and the influence of oceans and altitude, that our wine styles are incredibly diverse."

Mr. Gosper was in Toronto last week at the behest of industry group Wine Australia to help train waiters at several downtown restaurants on the finer points of Australian geography and wine styles. Similar restaurant tutorials and regional-themed tasting events are planned for Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver.

"When you go into a wine shop or restaurant here, you see on the wine list 'Bordeaux,' 'Burgundy,' 'Chianti' - the older-world regions broken up with a lot of depth. When you come to the Australian section, it's just 'Australia,' " he said. "The education here is really lacking compared with the volume we sell."

It's a fair point, I think, and one I've had to battle myself when trying to convince people that Australia actually produces some fine pinot noirs - a grape variety that needs cool weather and, ideally, limestone soil to produce great wine. Despite the country's more than 60 wine-producing regions, some of them high in the hills and quite cool, there is a widespread belief that Australia is one big sauna that churns out nothing but big, heavy wines, the vast majority of them shirazes and oaky chardonnays.

Then again, consumers here might be forgiven for a skewed impression. Though Canada ranks as Australia's third-largest export market (after the United Kingdom and the United States), shiraz and shiraz-dominated blends represented 39 per cent of the wine shipped here from Australia last year. Most, of course, was in the form of popular, under-$15 brands such as Yellow Tail, Lindemans and Jacob's Creek. "Australia's delivered amazing value for money, but [many of] those wines come from what we call the generic region, the southeast Australian appellation, and the hero of Australia down there is shiraz," says Mr. Gosper, who made sparkling wine for 13 years at Domaine Chandon in Australia's cool-climate Yarra Valley.

By contrast, to my mind two of the most exciting varieties, grenache and riesling, accounted for about 1 per cent of Australian imports here. Pinot noir, another grape that is coming into its own thanks in part to the recent introduction of more suitable clones, also represents a 1-per-cent share of imports.

Ontarians won't find many examples of these in a special release of 26 premium Australian wines coming up at Vintages stores on Oct. 11. But the roll-out - which mainly features shirazes and cabernet sauvignons from the big-three quality regions of Barossa, Coonawarra and McLaren Vale - does include a few offbeat entries such as a Granite Hills Riesling from the high-elevation Macedon Ranges and a crisp Mornington Estate Chardonnay from the cool Mornington Peninsula on the extreme southern tip of the mainland.

Here's a glance at some of the less-known regional names and emerging grape varieties that, with luck, we'll be seeing more of on shelves next to all those generic shirazes.

Adelaide Hills A predominantly cool region near the southern city of Adelaide, it is winning praise for sauvignon blanc in particular. The style is not to be confused with high-decibel sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, though. Think lemon and mineral rather than asparagus and plump gooseberry. Also known for chardonnay, riesling and sparkling wine. A good sauvignon blanc producer: Shaw & Smith.

Clare Valley Probably Australia's premiere district for riesling. Though located in South Australia, it is nestled in a high-altitude pocket with sunny days and cool nights. The cellar-worthy rieslings are almost always imbued with a racy, lime-like acidity and a hint of minerals. Notable producers: Jeanneret, Leasingham, Mitchell, Pikes, Skillogalee and Wakefield.

Eden Valley High-altitude vineyards at the southern end of this large valley in South Australia also excel at riesling. Key producers include Henschke and Mesh. Curiously, the region is also home to one of the most storied shiraz vineyards in the country, Henschke's Hill of Grace.

Margaret River This region on the remote western edge of the country boasts an unusually cool, maritime climate not unlike that of Bordeaux. Cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay are the two stars here, though they have more in common, stylistically, with classic French versions than fuller-bodied examples from the rest of Australia. The cabernets tend to have a minty, herbaceous edge, while the chardonnays almost always boast a fine seam of acidity. Look for such producers as Hamelin Bay, Palandri, Ringbolt, Stella Bella and Xanadu.

Tasmania A large island off the southern tip of the mainland, it boasts cool temperatures. That climate makes it ideal for wines that demand a firm acid backbone, notably pinot noir and champagne-style sparkling wines. Pipers Brook and Bay Of Fires are top pinot noir estates, while Jansz is the leading bubbly maker.

Yarra Valley One of the foremost cool-climate zones, it excels, like Tasmania, in pinot noir and sparkling wine as well as in crisp, Burgundian-style chardonnays. Good pinot noirs occasionally available in Canada include Coldstream Hills, De Bortoli and Yering Station. De Bortoli also makes an excellent shiraz-viognier blend in the prized style of a Côte-Rôtie from France's northern Rhone Valley.