Post is by guest writer Anthony Lee
A few kilometres from the centre of Adelaide, as the land starts to rise into the hills, lies the core of the Penfolds’ operation. This is where it all started and where today a modern visitor centre stands alongside the old buildings where Penfolds’ signature wine – The Grange, is still made. It’s a strange mix of ultra modern and 60+ year old open concrete fermentation tanks, with views over Adelaide from the terrace outside.
Penfolds started a philosophy with the Grange that differs from most winemakers and is still at the heart of their latest initiatives. For most wines the more specific the area of production the better the wine and the higher the price. In France the lowest level is “vins de table”, then “vins du Pays”, then it goes up to regional wines such as Côtes du Rhône, then specified village name, then at the top a specific vineyard or even a specific location within a vineyard. 60 years ago Penfolds challenged this whole philosophy by launching the Grange (then known as Grange Hermitage). This wine is a blend of top quality juice from many vineyards across a number of different regions. In France it would be labelled simply as a “vins du Pays” and be sold at an appropriately low price, Grange on release sells for over £600 a bottle! They are now taking their ideas further with their latest developments being wine blends from more than one continent! They have a wine made with Australian and Californian juice ( see tasting note below) and one a blend of Australian juice and juice from Bordeaux. Whether they will be a commercial success I do not know but they are priced not much below that of Grange and will be a talking point in the world of wine if nothing else.
For our wine tasting and tour we were fortunate enough to be in a small group and be hosted by the manager of the Cellar Door operation who proved to be very knowledgeable and experienced. Squeezing passed vast decorations to celebrate the Chinese New Year and the Chinese VIPs who had come to celebrate it, we toured the cellars. Apparently Penfolds in Chinese sounds the same as words meaning “good fortune soon” which has made their wines very popular with the Chinese and Chinese diaspora.
Most of Penfolds’ wines are blends of both their own and bought in grapes (this includes the Grange). They own over 2,000 hectares of vines but buy in grapes from over 3,000 hectares grown by other vineyards. This gives them the freedom to change the source of the grapes as they have recently with their Pinot Noir which is now sourced entirely from Tasmanian fruit and they are also sourcing more of their needs for Shiraz from cooler growing areas. Their aim is to maintain the blend characteristics rather than its precise source. This brought to mind the Champenoise who make a lot of maintaining their brand style by sourcing grapes from across the whole of the region and then blending multiple vintages to keep the wine produced a similar style.
Our host poured a wide selection of wines and appreciating our love of wines extended the wines into ones not in the standard tasting including more unusual and older vintages. In total we tasted 16 wines, below are a few of the most notable.
We tasted their only single vineyard Shiraz Magill Estate, made from vines over 70 years old and is the vineyard in front of the cellar door in suburban Adelaide. We tasted the 2019 and it needed a few more years in bottle but it promised great things.
Their Bin 149 2020 is 100% Cabernet made from South Australian and 85% Californian Napa valley fruit. This US fruit dominance may account for why it is so approachable now (unlike many of their other quality wines which needed more age in bottle) as well as promising more in the future as it ages.
Bin 707 2021 100% Cabernet (c£400 a bottle) was one of the wines which promised so much in the future. Our host then opened a bottle of 1993 vintage for us and it turned out to be sublime. Only problem is we don’t have £400 to spare nor (being the age we are, 30 years to wait to drink the latest vintage when it is mature. That was the best wine we tasted there easily surpassing the Grange 2019 which was far too young although it was powerful and promising.
So we concluded a most excellent tasting. Is the blending of grapes from multiple continents the way forward? We shall just have to wait and see.
Published 6 March 2024
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