Penfolds, as you’re possibly aware, recently released four new red wines. The first thing that might strike you as unusual about them is that of the four, only 13% of one and 15% of another was grown and made in Australia. But that’s just the first surprise of many…
With its California Collection 2021, Penfolds is striving to demonstrate that the processes and understanding of grape growing and winemaking it has evolved here in Australia – what it calls its House Style (its own capitals and italics) – are in fact a transportable commodity that when applied to winegrapes in other countries can deliver a brand-new expression of wine that is reflective firstly of Penfolds itself and secondly of its place of origin.
Penfolds’ House Style has become ‘a philosophy unrestricted by vine, border or continent’, according to Chief Winemaker Peter Gago, who explains that this first release ‘strives to extol an otherworldliness hovering above Californian terra firma (his italics)’. This new chapter, as outlined in the booklet it published for this release, is a ‘continuum of endeavour unbound by country, vine or time’. Just in case you thought the French had the last word on wine pomposity…
Penfolds has been active in California since its acquisition of a site at Paso Robles in 1997, which today boasts around 91 acres of vines sourced from both Kalimna and Magill Estate in South Australia. In 2000, a year before the Australian vines were introduced to this property, Fosters, the then owner of Mildara Blass, bought Beringer Estates in the USA for almost $3 billion. By 2005, when Fosters bought Southcorp (the owner of a large stable of brands including Penfolds), the combined company had a massive US footprint.
Over the past three years Penfolds has been able to augment its Paso Robles fruit – which incidentally only appears in the cheapest of the new releases – with that from ‘the best’ of its owner’s Californian assets across several other regions.
Its new California Collection comprises the first red wines released under a Penfolds label that do not exclusively come from Australia. The two most expensive are actually a blend of American with small amounts of Australian wine – another first. And to put it out there, I think this is the first time in a non-sparkling and non-fortified context that a wine company with such an emphatic house stamp has marched straight into a country famous for its own style, production and quality standards and then ignored them completely.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, for it’s precisely what the late Dr Tony Jordan did in the 1980s with Domaine Chandon in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, in a move that totally changed and massively improved the way sparkling wine is made in Australia.
While I sincerely doubt Penfolds harbours a similar set of ambitions for California, it sure has left no stone unturned to infuse its American wines with its House Style, even to the extent of shipping over to California the oak it habitually buys from the Adelaide-based cooper AP Johns – much of which is actually fashioned from what has since become rather well-travelled American oak. Similarly, Penfolds has also introduced to the US the same Australian-devised fermentation technology it feels essential to its style. Furthermore, its makers have also deliberately introduced the familiar balsamic hint of volatility that hardened Penfolds drinkers accept, knowingly or indeed unknowingly, in its wines. More firsts…
So, there is no faulting the whole-hearted commitment by which Penfolds has accepted the challenge it set itself. The big question, of course, is whether or not the challenge was a smart one to attempt in the first place.
Usually, when a maker or a company moves into an unfamiliar region or country it undergoes a long, steady period of research and refinement that will enable it to make the best possible wine it can, wherever that may be. The approach is to learn and react to what is learned, to alter or modify choices of techniques in the management of the vineyard, the fermentation, the extraction or whatever.
It’s rare, if not unprecedented, for a prestigious brand like Penfolds to implant everything it’s capable of influencing into a new geography. There’s no doubt this is the riskiest path – for by declaring so emphatically that it’s 100% focused on taking its own proprietary approach to California, it is by definition limiting its production options. What if Plan A (the Penfolds’ House Style) doesn’t work? Say the oak that works just fine with Australian fruit just doesn’t fit with California’s flavour and tannin profiles? Say the Australian fermenters and header boards just don’t deliver the right level of extraction of fruit and texture?
And so, with a mix of wariness and concern, but with an entirely open mind, I tasted the wines. Would I be happy just to see more of the same Penfolds that we see in Australia? No, the hype around them commands something different and new; otherwise the project adds nothing. Would I be happy to see a collection of really competent, straight down the line Californian wines? No – by all definitions, especially that of Penfolds, that would rate a fail. The expectation carefully curated by Penfolds is of a style and quality we haven’t experienced before.
Here are my tasting notes:
Penfolds Bin 600 Cabernet Shiraz 2018 ($90) (100% California Cabernet Sauvignon & Shiraz)
An uncomplicated, forward young red whose dusty aromas of redcurrants, cranberries and sweet oak reveal nuances of roasting meats, spearmint, bay leaf and cola. Initially quite juicy, its bright, slightly confectionary expression of red fruits and chocolatey oak is framed by mouthcoating tannin but then gives way to rather a raw, drying finish that crimps its length of flavour. Lacks length and drive of fruit.
16.4/20, 88/100 drink 2026-2030+
Penfolds Bin 704 Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 ($120) (100% Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon)
Sweet aromas of red berries, cedar/vanilla oak and cola with notes of balsamic vinegar, oregano, menthol and roasting meats precede a palate of medium to fullish weight. Bright, juicy black, red and blue fruits slowly emerge, but the wine is book-ended by a raw-edged finish of drying, chewy and almost bitter tannins. It lacks finesse and genuine balance.
16.2/20, 87/100 drink 2023-2026
Penfolds Bin 149 Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 ($220) (85.1% Napa Valley, 14.9% South Australia)
Ripe and bloody; scented with brambly red and black fruits, cedar/vanilla/pine needle oak, spearmint and menthol. Initially plush, smooth and creamy, with a pastille-like presence of dark, plump berry flavour with herbal, cola-like undertones, it quickly becomes more tarry, short and drying towards its stringy, attenuated and bitter finish. There’s plenty of length – after considerable breathing – but the hard edges remain after a full day and more. I would love to point this wine higher for its fruit, but its raw, uncompromising finish prevents me from doing so.
16.8/20, 89/100, drink 2030-2038
Penfolds Quantum Bin 98 Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 ($950) (87% Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% South Australia Shiraz)
Violet-like scents of cassis, mulberries, redcurrants and blackberry pie overlie minty, herbal suggestions of menthol and roasting tray, with undertones of balsamic vinegar. Fullish in weight, with a smooth, generous core of blueberries, cassis, red berries and slightly raw, angular American oak underpinned by pliant, schisty tannins, it initially dries out in raw, clunky fashion but after very extended breathing slowly fleshes out with a more assertive length of fruit. Eventually becoming plump and unctuous, it does however remain extremely drying and astringent.
18.6/20, 95/100, drink 2038-2048
Are the wines remotely like the Penfolds we see from Australia? Well, no. They have a much finer, tighter-grained and raw-edged astringency and they lack the sumptuous depth of fruit that Australian Penfolds reds are famous for. So, their structure is quite different: this new collection lacks the weight, plushness and ultimately the balance of their Australian counterparts. Yes, there are some inevitable similarities due to the intent and nature of the way they were crafted, but without the label these would not be recognised by most Australians as Penfolds wines.
Are they different and new? As a group, they’re different because they’re not what you expect from this brand. They’re also not what you expect from a Californian wine company; the fruit is far leaner, less plush, layered and less juicy. They’re less opulent by some margin than what Californians consider to be their own classics and there’s a rather forced aspect to their structure. Are they anything new? By definition they’re new, but do they offer a distinctive quality and style that we haven’t seen before? No.
Are they any good? There’s good and bad news in the fact that they all improved with more than a day’s aeration. It suggests they should improve with age, but odds are that most will be opened over the next few years. And, given their tendency towards a drying rawness and stringy hardness, something I believe is exacerbated by the proprietary choice of oak (which I do not think works well with Californian tannin structures) and possibly the fermentation technique, they lack the balance I expect in wines I recommend for cellaring.
How will they be viewed by American wine drinkers? I hope it’s not the expectation of Penfolds to sell these wines in the US given they’re poles apart from what American wine drinkers – of both expensive and less expensive wines – want to open. But given the challenging times we’re in, I do hope I’m mistaken here.
How will they be received in China (assuming that some effort will be made to sell them there to maintain a Penfolds brand presence during this ongoing governmental spat between Australia and China)? Well, due to the ongoing spat between the US and China, US wine currently faces an additional 25% tariff (on top of the 54% usual taxes) on imported wine in China (thegrapevinemagazine.net), which effectively adds another 49% to the RRP an American customer would pay for the same wine. This alone is sufficient to seriously dampen any sales expectations in China, let alone a suspicion lurking in the back of my mind that many Chinese wine consumers would consider a Penfolds wine claiming to come from the US as being fake. What an interesting suspicion that would be…
How might Australians see the wines? As a group – as expensive curios. With the entry level coming in at a solid $90 per bottle, more expensive by far than a mature Wynns Coonawarra Estate individual vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (made by the same company), they are miles off the mark in terms of what Australians are currently prepared to pay.
At $950 per bottle, the Quantum Bin 98 is priced to match Grange, a wine whose status as the Penfolds’ flagship continues to come under friendly fire. During the five hours immediately after its opening it had been a massive disappointment, but its length and depth of fruit eventually declared themselves more than a day after opening. Its largely Napa fruit profile was then sufficiently able to express itself and my score climbed over the threshold for a gold medal.
Is it a wine worthy of its price or the status its makers aspire for it? Many very experienced wine critics are convinced it is, but I am not. The Opus One 2016 (a Napa Valley blend of red Bordeaux varieties), made with seamless elegance and an ultra-fine firmness, smashes it for length, perfume, harmony and complexity. While the early vintages of Opus One were not at this level, it’s since become a wine with global prestige, pedigree and proven longevity. It sells in Melbourne for $200 less per bottle than the Quantum. And while you don’t get much by way of Napa Valley cabernet for less than $100 in the US, the Bin 149 Cabernet Sauvignon spectacularly under-delivers against wines less than a quarter of its price in the Australian market.
And finally, given that the two most expensive wines in the release are trans-Pacific blends, is there any apparent value within or hitherto undiscovered X-Factor or experience as a result of this innovative process that might motivate other makers to try something similar? No, not that I could see, and I certainly looked for it.
It’s now 2021, which means there are similar releases on the way from 2019 and maybe also from the fire and smoked-affected Napa vintage of 2020. It’s far too early to write off Penfolds’ California Collection after a single release, and I think I know where improvements can be made. The self-imposed challenge for Penfolds, however, is how they improve their Californian wines while maintaining their strict adherence to their House Style practices and techniques they evolved themselves in Australia to make wine from Australian grapes.
Can they simultaneously be Penfolds, California-based and excellent? We shall see. For the time being, this juror is out.
NB. I decided to uncomplicate this article by holding back my considerable doubts as to the veracity of what Penfolds italicises as its House Style. As I have referred to in previous articles, this notion would suggest that the company’s reds have hardly changed style since the days of Max Schubert et al in the 1950s and 1960s – which they certainly have – and that the style of wines such as Bin 407, Bin 389, St Henri and even Grange have remained consistent over the journey and are subject only to vintage variation – which they certainly have not.
