Australian white wine grape varieties generally smell and taste like citrus and other tree fruit, like lemon, orange, grapefruit or apple. In mature white wines, or in sweet white wines, we can often taste more exotic or tropical fruit, like pineapple, mango, apricot, pear, melon and lychees. White wines also have odours and tastes such as mineral, spice, herbs, tobacco, hay, yeast, honey, caramel and nuts.

The tastes comes from either the grape variety, the yeasts if indigenous yeasts are not used to start fermentation, the fermentation period, or the oak used for ageing.