Australia’s far-flung vineyard regions and diverse climate make for confusion when it comes to wine. Even so, I’d venture to reduce a current profile of the Aussie wine industry to just three elements: a mighty river, a vast lake, and a deep forest. The river, flowing deep and wide toward almost every wine shop in North America, is pure Yellow Tail, a wine brand that has surged in just a few years to become a phenomenal multimillion case seller. The lake, meanwhile, is filled with at least 500 million gallons of cheap “beverage” wine, lacking a magic name and for which, in a wine-glutted world, there is no market even as each bountiful new vintage adds to the excess.

Then there’s the deep forest, consisting of a vast array of better-to-best quality Australian wines, many from artisanal producers, competing to escape each other’s shadow to reach consumer sunlight. Alas, these Aussie wines can be a confusing bunch compared to wines from better-delineated wine regions. Buy a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, or a French Hermitage, or a Napa cabernet, and you’ll already have a pretty good fix on its style. But what to make of such headscratchers as “The Broken Fishplate” sauvignon blanc, “The Love Grass Shiraz,” or “Hangin’ Snakes” shiraz/viognier? Hoping to get a powerful wine, you may find that you’ve bought one that is merely nimble. Or, seeking restraint, you may instead be smacked with a fruit-bomb that’s all too easy to make in Australia’s hottest regions. Lacking advice from a knowledge salesperson, you won’t know what you’ve got until you open the bottle. Even the great Aussie standard brands can be confusing. Penfolds’s “Bin Series,” for example, is a pervasively rich and balanced range of reds. But who can keep track of wines labeled Bin 128, 138, 407, 389, and 707?

What most of us need, if we’re to confidently find our way through that forest of Australian wine labels, is a trustworthy guide. For that, there’s none better than John Larchet, an Irishman of Huguenot ancestry, who now lives in Sidney and is married to “an American gal.” As the proprietor the Australian Premium Wine Collection, Mr. Larchet, 47, markets a personally selected collection of 20 Australian independent wine labels from 13 different regions. Each bottle is marked by a gold-andblack neck label bearing the firm’s name. Mr. Larchet also sources and blends grapes for three labels of his own. His team of seven regional brand managers promotes the wines in America, where they are handled by local distributors. The wines, priced from under $10 to over $70, range from shiraz to chardonnay, riesling to mourvedre. “Of course, they are very different wines,” Mr. Larchet said.”Yet there is a common theme in that they are aromatically expressive and intensely flavored. But the ultimate key for me is that the wines I select must be born with a natural harmony — no extremes of tannins, alcohol, acidity, or oak. These are the pillars of a wine and they’ve got to coexist happily from the get-go.”

The Dublin-born Mr. Larchet was seduced by Australian wines, and by the country itself, during a yearlong tour in 1981. He found a job in advertising in Sidney and stayed. “I never had the idea of owning a wine company or even of systematically exploring the wine regions,” he said.”But over the years of buying and tasting, I became convinced that Aussie wines were absolutely world-class.” In 1994, while preparing the wine list for his wedding in Chicago, Mr. Larchet was dismayed to discover that his Australian favorites were unavailable in America. “They were kept in Australia partly out of greed by people happy to drink them all, but also because there was nobody to take them out into the world. These little wineries just didn’t have the ability to transcend international boundaries.” His firm now exports 112 different labels to 35 states. And the search goes on.

“For me, picking out a star wine, you can see it from early on, even from the unfermented juice,” Mr. Larchet said. “I’m not suggesting that I get it right every time, but either the star quality is there or it’s not. And the more wines you taste, the more demanding you become.” After tasting several dozen of Mr. Larchet’s selections over the last few weeks, I did indeed find a few stars, the brightest of which is the Clonakilla shiraz/viognier below. More importantly, not a single one of Mr. Larchet’s wines failed to catch and hold my interest. In a world where cleanly made, yet forgettable wines are increasingly the norm, that’s an achievement. So, when I’m feeling adventurous, I may indeed gamble on a fancifully named bottle like “The Broken Fishplate,” or even a roussanne called “The Money Spider.” But for maximum comfort level, I’ll look for the neck seal marking Mr. Larchet’s collection.

RECOMMENDED WINES

PRIMO ESTATE “LA BIONDINA” 2005 ADELAIDE HILLS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA ($15 at Smith & Vine) Colombard, normally a lowly jug wine grape, scintillates in this carefully produced white that sings of meadow flowers and herbs. It’s got not only zing, but a touch of complexity as well. Why aren’t more winemakers treating colombard with respect?

GROSSET “POLISH HILL” DRY RIESLING 2005, CLARE VALLEY ($28.95 at Zachys) In no other country does riesling pick up such an intense core of lime-inflected aromas and flavors. And yet this wine is creamy-textured, with slate-like firmness taking over on the long aftertaste. Classy rather than showy stuff built to last, and a wine that made me want to roast a monkfish.

CLONAKILLA SHIRAZ/VIOGNIER, CANBERRA, 2004 ($60 at Blanc & Rouge) Pure, powerful, and heady with black cherry and tarry flavors, the shiraz in this blend gets lift and grace from the addition of a bit of white viognier. Thrilling wine ablaze with flavor, and more than worth its price.

TIR NA N’OG “OLD VINES” GRENACHE, MCCLAREN VALE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA ($23.95 at Zachys) Layers of sequentially darker, richer fruit show themselves in this voluptuous yet not flabby wine blended by Mr. Larchet. There’s no apparent oak to get in the way of the pure fruit layers, and the 15.5% alcohol is well hidden. The wine’s name is Gaelic for “Land of the Youth.”