Penfolds marks 175 years with a powerhouse Grange 2015

The Penfolds Grange 2015 has been released after four years of anticipation, and it is a classic edition that recalls revered powerhouse vintages like 1998 and 1990. I rated the wine 100 points in the launch tasting in London in mid-July.

Released August 8, 2019 with the launch of The Penfolds Collection 2019, the 2015 Grange is the highlight in a collection that contains numerous bottles of excellent quality. There has been a procession of excellent full-bodied South Australian red wines from the warm and dry 2015 vintage and this latest release lives up to expectations. 

“It’s a very black-fruited, good old-fashioned gutsy Grange,” says Chief Winemaker Peter Gago, speaking in the year that marks 175 years of Penfolds winemaking. He has been sitting on this wine for just over four years and is clearly happy to see it released. 

This will be a very long-lived vintage; it really should not be opened for at least a dozen years from release. The aromas are light at this stage, but there is deeply buried power and concentration and the palate is an epic display of muscular shiraz from the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Clare Valley and Magill Estate. Cabernet sauvignon makes up just two percent in the 2015.

The other star in the release this year is the St. Henri Shiraz 2016, rated 98 points. The keen focus of the 2016 vintage is a perfect fit for the delicate and fruit-focused St. Henri and it has delivered a wine with freshness, complexity, detail, purity and elegance. 

This really is one of the great St. Henri releases, on a par with the already legendary 2010. Shiraz grapes were harvested across the Barossa Valley, Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale, Clare Valley, Coonawarra and Magill Estate at optimal ripeness. A great 2016 St Henri means there’s surely a great 2016 Grange preparing for release in 2020. 

The 2017 vintage is the heart and soul of this year’s collection and the quality of the wines in a difficult vintage is testament to the strength of Penfolds’ cross-regional blending.

“Having that ability to blend is all-important and is only getting more important with the weather bouncing off walls every year,” says Gago. “Things are only going to get more extreme.” 

I get the feeling that Gago and his winemaking team worked hard to find the quality in the 2017 red wines in this collection, because not all of them survived. Bin 138 (93 points), Bin 389 (94 points) and Bin 407 (93 points) all hit the right mark, the latter benefiting from parcels normally sent to other more premium blends. But Bin 707 and Bin 169, two iconic cabernet sauvignon wines, failed to make the release, a result of a challenging end to the harvest with plenty of rain making it difficult for the late-ripening varietal. 

The quality required to produce this iconic pair of cabernets was simply unattainable from the 2017 harvest and Penfolds does not vary price with vintage like Bordeaux. “We are still a winemaking company,” Gago says, also hinting that the good quality of the Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon is the upside of omitting the two icon cabernet sauvignon wines.

The other wine that stands out in this year’s collection is an unlikely hero: the Bin 311 Chardonnay (95 points). This is a wine whose grape sourcing has shifted around but was always defined as a single region, cool-climate chardonnay that most often came from Tumbarumba, with cameo appearances from Henty and Orange. The 2017 vintage Bin 311 (93 points, released last year) also tapped into Adelaide Hills, Tasmania and Tumbarumba and this year’s wine shows the new multi-regional sourcing strategy is set.

“We really hope to make this wine the Bin 389 of our whites,” says Gago of Bin 311. “And we cannot do it solely out of Tumbarumba, we can’t do it out of Tasmania and we can’t do it out of the Adelaide Hills every year either.” 

This wine is being groomed to hit the enormous demand for high-quality chardonnay at a medium price point, receiving material from the Yattarna and Adelaide Hills Reserve Bin A programs.

This latest release is complex, with a powerful core of cool-climate fruit presented in a modern style with new oak dialled up. Gago suggests this excellent 2018 Bin 311 could be an aberration in terms of the oak component but regardless, it is a deliciously complex and powerful chardonnay and one to buy up fast. It represents terrific value.

— Nick Stock, senior editor