Penfolds 2021: Shiraz Sparkles and Superblends Find Their Mark

I tasted the full set of Penfolds 2021 collection of wines at Kingsford Homestead right on the outskirts of the Barossa Valley this year with Chief Winemaker Peter Gago. This year’s collection spans five different vintages, from the outstanding young 2021 Bin 51 Eden Valley Riesling to the elder statesman-like 2017 Bin 95 Grange Shiraz, with the bulk of the release being red wines from the 2019 vintage. Gago also debuted two limited-release wines from 2018, but more on those later.

The 2017 vintage of Grange marks this wine’s 70th anniversary (from the experimental 1951 to 2021, with this year’s being the 67th consecutive release), which was celebrated with a presentation of selected vintages dating as far back as 1965, all of which I have reviewed and rated for this report. 2017 was a cooler vintage across all South Australian regions and has delivered a Grange sourced from just two GIs – Barossa and McLaren Vale.

It is only the seventh release of Grange that is 100 percent shiraz (cabernet sauvignon is most often included as a very small percentage of the blend), the most recent shiraz-only Grange being 2011, a wine that hails from another cool season that was also marred by heavy rains. The 2017 Grange is energetic and fleshy with much of the signature 100 percent new American oak influence driving ripe blackberry and plum fruits. It is a wine that leans toward boldness with plenty of extract, yet it is quite approachable and will ultimately sit as a slightly lighter, earlier-drinking Grange when compared with recent vintages like 2016 and 2015.

Judging by the very high-quality 2018 Penfolds reds released to date, next year’s 2018 Grange is set to be a blockbuster. The strength of vintage 2018 for Penfolds is demonstrated here, as the 2018 St. Henri Shiraz is the star of this year’s release. With a heart of pure and concentrated shiraz that is aged in large-format oak, it also has a small percentage of cabernet sauvignon in the blend. St. Henri is a counterpoint to Grange in so many ways, rusted to tradition and defined by a graciously balanced, fruit-focused style. This 2018 is one of the finest St. Henri releases and reminiscent of the great 2010. It drinks so well already and yet it will age very well for two decades and more.

The flagship cabernet sauvignon in the collection, 2019 Bin 707, remains a bastion of Penfolds’ house style, with very overt American oak influence (100 percent new). This is a wine of real cabernet substance, though, and it has a palate that builds in seamless layers of ripe blue and purple fruits that will soak up the wood in the first decade of cellaring.

There’s no sign of the 2019 Bin 169 Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon in this year’s release, an alarming absence after last year’s excellent 2018 and a point I queried Peter Gago about.

A PENFOLDS CLASSIC: Another look at the Grange Bin 95 2010.

“We’ve made a 2019 but we’ve decided to give this vintage more bottle maturation,” he said. “We want to give this wine more esteem and a more rarified air.” Stay tuned for that release in the 2022 collection.

Meanwhile, 2019 has delivered a convincing suite of shiraz wines in this release, led by a compelling Magill Estate that has a decidedly richer and grander feel for a wine that is often intense but tightly focused. This 2019 has a bigger frame, which really appeals. The 2019 RWT Bin 798 is also a bold edition of this wine, with plenty of power and muscle built into the richly concentrated palate. This will also appeal to those wanting to cellar; the structure holds an impressively long palate and supports such intense shiraz fruit.

The pair of new limited release reds I tasted share much in common but have been steered along very different paths, delivering distinctive wines when tasted side by side. They are both 2018 vintage blends of cabernet sauvignon and shiraz that Penfolds has dubbed “superblends,” yet their journeys through maturation, bottling and ultimately release are distinctly different. Both wines are primarily assembled with parcels from the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra, with smaller blending components drawn from Wrattonbully, Robe and Clare Valley.

The 2018 Bin 820.A is a blend of 68 percent cabernet sauvignon and 32 percent shiraz components that were matured separately for 22 months in new American oak hogsheads. This wine is being released globally on August 5, along with the rest of the 2021 collection. It has a very bold oak-driven feel and will appeal to palates that show a preference for impactful, dialed-up wines. In the Penfolds context, if a wine like Bin 707 is your thing, this is aligned with that style and will appeal to your palate. It is priced in the realm of Grange.

The 2018 Bin 802.B is 55 percent cabernet sauvignon and 45 percent shiraz, which was blended immediately post-fermentation and matured for 19 months in French oak hogsheads (54 percent new and 46 percent second fill). This wine will be released globally with the rest of the collection in August 2022, one full year from now.

As the above synopsis would suggest, Bin 802.B is a wine steered in the direction of harmony. It already presents in such a complete and resolved mode, the power of the 2018 cabernet and shiraz components astutely channeled. It was made in a significantly smaller quantity than the Bin 802.A and will be released in August 2022 with next year’s Penfolds collection. If St. Henri is your thing, this wine will certainly appeal, and you might also think of it as a more polished, powerful and refined version of Bin 389 Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz. In reality, it borrows from both.

These new superblends thread together much more than grape varieties, regions and oak types. They encapsulate and express much of Penfolds’ DNA – its culture, traditions and history – and they reinterpret and repackage it all to ultimately deliver two very different wines that collate aspects of differently spirited eras in the company story. They will appeal to different taste preferences as much as to nostalgic urges. Bin 802.A is aligned with the brashly modern, big-name wines like Grange and Bin 707. Bin 802.B is a more reluctant hero, inspired partly by deep tradition yet also informed by current tastes and observations.

My tasting preference is for Bin 802.B, and this is not on the basis of a preference for American or French oak. The devil is in the detail of blending, and the fact that Bin 802.B was blended prior to maturation (whereas Bin 802.A was blended post-maturation, just before bottling) gives this wine a sense of harmony and tightly fused complexity that really sets it apart.

And although less of the Bin 802.B was produced, the good news is that these wines will continue to be made where the quality and quantity of exceptional parcels allows. The 2021 Bin 802.B is actually being blended now, and with no 2019 or 2020 Bin 802 wines made, 2021 will be the next release after the 2018s.

– Nick Stock, Contributing Editor