2024 Penfolds Collection: Analysis
2024 Penfolds Collection.
Penfolds Grange, the golden goose of Australian wine, is on a run of excellence never before seen in its history, or certainly not seen in the past 50 years. This does not mean that Penfolds Grange is a better wine now than it ever was; that’s simply not true. But it is now more consistently excellent. Penfolds hasn’t made a lesser Grange Shiraz since the 2000 release (88/100, The Winefront). Yes, the 2003 Penfolds Grange (93/100) and the 2011 (92+/100) are both silver medal offerings in our view, but they still rate as good wines. The more compelling point though is that the past nine releases of Penfolds Grange Shiraz have all scored 96 points or higher. In the 1990s, there were five Penfolds Grange releases with a score of 93 or lower, followed by the infamous 88-point 2000 release. If the 2021 Penfolds Grange (released this time next year) warrants a rating of 96 points or higher, it will be the tenth Penfolds Grange in a row to achieve such a rating.
That, simply, is incredible.
Indeed, of the past 21 releases of Penfolds Grange, 17 releases have scored 95 or higher on The Winefront. All these scores are Winefront scores, it should be noted. Winefront never rates a mention on the Penfolds site, for instance, because Winefront is not a lenient scorer. This adds yet more weight to the above achievements.
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The 2020 Penfolds Grange Shiraz is “not a show pony, and is not a wall of sound, but it's Grange being Grange, authoritative, settled, the ants served crushed, the fruit deep”. The seasonal conditions of the 2020 vintage were not considered ideal, but in the end these conditions have done Penfolds Grange 2020 no disservice. Indeed, if you enjoy the more traditional style of Grange, with a bit more measure to it, and a greater emphasis on complexity as opposed to out-and-out thunder, then this season may indeed have done the wine a favour.
I’ve reviewed pretty much every release of Penfolds Grange Shiraz, all the way back to the 1952. All the historic reviews of every vintage of Penfolds Grange are on The Winefront here. The full review of the 2020 Penfolds Grange Shiraz is reviewed on The Winefront here. The asking price for the 2020 release is $1000 per bottle, as it has been for the previous two years. If you’re in the market for a recent vintage, to drink or to keep, auction is likely your best source. Auction price estimates at Langton’s for 2019 Penfolds Grange are $630-$810. The 2018 Penfolds Grange has a price estimate of $630-$900. Plus, of course, commission. Auction is your best bet for recent vintages because Penfolds Grange is rarely a good short-to-medium term investment. You generally lose a bit as you walk out the showroom door, so to speak. Long term though, at least historically, can be a different matter.
For all this quality, and these scores, and these prices, only one thing more need be said. When you drink a bottle of Grange, you’re drinking more than a bottle of wine. Other Australian wines, at least in their youth, compare incredibly favourably for quality, and even more favourably for value. But, in many (most) Australian social circles, no wine-related sentence quite compares to: we opened a bottle of Grange.
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If you stand back and look at the success of Penfolds, historically, it comes down to three key ingredients, with an extra cherry or two on top.
Penfolds makes wines that a large number of wine enthusiasts are loyal to. This is an historical statement rather than, necessarily, a statement on where things are now. Historically, Australian red wine consumers have been loyal to Bin 28, Bin 389 and St Henri Shiraz, principally, with Bin 407 not far behind, followed by Bin 128 perhaps. For decades, these wines have been the backbone of Australian wine cellars. Indeed in the 2023 edition of Wineark’s Most Collected Wines list, Penfolds St Henri Shiraz came in at number two, and Penfolds Bin 389 at number three. The only reason neither of these wines makes it to the number one spot is because …
Not only does Penfolds make the wines we are loyal to. It makes the wines we love to collect, and/or love to covet. Penfolds Grange is the number one collected wine in Australia, right now, as of course it has been for decades. When I say we, I mean the Australian premium wine buying community. There’s a big difference between a car driver and a car enthusiast, and there’s the same difference between a wine drinker and a wine enthusiast. In the enthusiast realm, Penfolds traditionally has had both Saturday night covered, and the significant anniversary/achievement. This is why Penfolds is not just the golden goose of Australian wine; it occupies a space of its own. In Wineark’s Most Collected Wines list, seven of the top 20 wines are made by Penfolds (Grange, St Henri, Bin 389, RWT, Bin 707, Bin 28 and Bin 407).
Penfolds started as a family company but it’s had a corporate persona for pretty much ever. It was a big family company, and then it was swallowed by a corporation, and then it was swallowed again, or something like that. Corporations are generally faceless, soulless, heartless operations, and the ownership of Penfolds ticks all those boxes. But somehow, along the way, Penfolds has been staggeringly successful at selling both wine, and a story. Max Schubert was an employee, that’s all he was, an employee. And yet the brand became him. Max Schubert’s story, specifically his Penfolds Grange story, is unquestionably Australian wine’s best story, and certainly its most valuable. Corporations almost never have personal stories; Penfolds does. It’s a freak. The legacy of this story is immense of course but it extends further than Grange. What this story did, or does, is it makes or made Penfolds seem like a winemakers’ company, rather than merely a company.
The cherry on top. Penfolds has never been shy of marketing its wares. This isn’t a recent addition to the Penfolds arsenal. Penfolds, culturally, historically, expansively, creatively, is an aggressive, effective, brilliant marketer. It makes wrong steps, it makes right steps, but it is always stepping out and doing.
At its best, Penfolds is brave. It never rests. It pushes. It reaches. It dares. It dreams. Peter Gago said recently “we’re innovative, we’re traditional, we’re all of the above”. Ever since Ray Beckwith gave Penfolds commercial advantage, if not earlier, this has been, for both good and ill, true.
I started drinking Penfolds wines in the 1980s. I’ve covered them professionally for nearly 25 years. Once, I’d commonly hear myself say, “I love Penfolds”. I may even, once, have been proud of them as the Aussie company who took on the world. At some time, at some stage, I stopped saying this, because I stopped feeling it. The above summary is off the top of my head, and is meant as an overview only. I mention the above because I think Point 1 has taken a beating over the past decade, in Australia at least; that Saturday night loyalty to the wines of Penfolds is nothing compared to what it once was and is, to an extent, lost. The world is a much bigger place than the Australian domestic market of course. But it’s always precarious when you lose your base.
A similar thing is and has happened to the story of Penfolds. Chief winemaker Peter Gago is a best-in-class winemaker, and a best-in-class storyteller. And yet the freak quality of Penfolds – that it’s both a corporation, and a human story – has gone backwards over the past 20 years. It no longer comes across as a winemakers’ company. The wines themselves are in great shape, more consistently excellent than ever, but the story of Penfolds has become about head office, about luxury for luxury’s sake, and about wine scores. The score is a story, for sure, but it’s everyone’s story and because it is, it eventually wears thin.
Wine drinkers are one thing. Wine enthusiasts want something real to connect to. Again, the story base of Penfolds has been eroded.
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The red wines of Penfolds grab the headlines but the white wines of Penfolds, specifically the chardonnays, are the ones the people in the know gravitate to. The 2023 Penfolds Reserve Bin 23A Chardonnay is another star (reviewed on The Winefront here). Indeed when you look at the history of this wine (19 prior vintages of Penfolds Reserve Bin Chardonnay reviewed on The Winefront) it’s a pretty formidable history. Since the 2005 release, 16 releases of Penfolds Reserve Bin Chardonnay have achieved Winefront scores of 95 points or higher, and if not for some splitting of hairs another couple of releases could be added to that tally. This wine retails in Australia for circa $120. This isn’t just pedigree in the making. This is chardonnay pedigree, laid out and laid on.
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My review of the latest release of Penfolds St Henri Shiraz 2021 notes that “this release will not blow anyone away but it will charm the socks off most. It’s the heart of the Penfolds range.” I’ve reviewed 58 vintages of Penfolds St Henri Shiraz, back to the 1956. Lovers of Australian shiraz come and lovers of Australian shiraz go, but real lovers of Australian shiraz – at least until recently – love Penfolds St Henri Shiraz, in story, in style, and in the glass. It’s a wine of historical significance, it sees no new oak (and never has), and indeed it’s aged in large format oak. In a way, St Henri Shiraz is the Betamax of the Penfolds range; it’s the alternative route that never became the main route, but arguably should have. The 2021 release is another beautiful wine.
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The 2022 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Sauvignon is “a commanding Bin 389”. Spoiler alert, I gave it 95/100 on The Winefront, but I could easily have reached higher, not because it’s bolder or more beautiful than usual, but because it does everything right and because it does so in such fine style. It’s the 46th vintage of Penfolds Bin 389 that I’ve tasted. The Penfolds range of red wines grows apace but some of these old faithfuls of the range are in as good a form as ever.
Penfolds Bin 28 2022 and Bin 128 2022, though, while both solid wines, now get a bit lost in the overall Penfolds range. The same style and quality can be found elsewhere.
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The “problem” with all this consistent excellence at Penfolds is that there’s now no room, it seems, for surprises. Everything is graded to within an inch of its life and so there’s never a stand-out for value or a wine that really turns your head or anything that screams character. I’d love to come away from a Penfolds tasting with a BUY THIS IT’S AMAZING VALUE line running through my head, or for a “St Henri is off the charts this year” realisation, or a “this release is completely different this year” message. Reviewing the Penfolds wines now is like running the same news item every day. Everything is pretty much exactly as its asking price dictates. Given that the asking price is generally high; there’s no news in that, and no fun. What I’m saying is: Penfolds never throws its customers a bone anymore, not even to those who helped build it.
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It might help to know what will actually be released by Penfolds as part of the 2024 Collection (released from captivity on August 1, 2024). These wines are all reviewed and scored on The Winefront here. The bare list is:
Champagne Thiénot x Penfolds Avize Blanc de Blanc Grand Cru 2014
Champagne Thiénot x Penfolds Ay Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru 2014
Penfolds Bin 51 Riesling 2024
Penfolds Bin 311 Chardonnay 2022
Penfolds Reserve Bin 23A Chardonnay 2023
Penfolds Yattarna Chardonnay 2022
Penfolds Bin 28 Shiraz 2022
Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz 2022
Penfolds Bin 138 Shiraz Grenache Mataro 2022
Penfolds Bin 149 Cabernet Sauvignon 2021
Penfolds Bin 150 Shiraz 2022
Penfolds Bin 169 Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
Penfolds Bin 21 Grenache 2022
Penfolds Bin 23 Pinot Noir 2023
Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2022
Penfolds Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
Penfolds Bin 600 Cabernet Shiraz 2021
Penfolds Bin 704 Cabernet Sauvignon 2021
Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
Penfolds FWT 585 Cabernet 2021
Penfolds CWT Bin 521 Cabernet Sauvignon Marselan 2022*
Penfolds Howell Mountain 2021
Penfolds II Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2022
Penfolds Magill Estate Shiraz 2022
Penfolds RWT Shiraz 2022
Penfolds St Henri Shiraz 2021
Penfolds Grange Shiraz 2020
Penfolds Bin 180 Cabernet Shiraz 2021
*CWT is the first Penfolds wine to be made exclusively from grapes grown in China.
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I’ll add a few more thoughts and my personal Top 5 of the 2024 Penfolds Collection shortly. In fact I made it a new post – personal Top 5 picks here.
Penfolds Bin 180 Cabernet Shiraz 2021 has now been added to Australia’s most expensive wine list.
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VIDEO
The Penfolds 2024 Collection has now been tasted and reviewed. Just for the sake of it I decided to also record a video on the Penfolds wine tasting process itself. This isn't a video of reviews, it's a behind the scenes ramble of what does and doesn't work in the tasting of the Penfolds wines, for me. Every reviewer of course is different. If for nothing else, watch the video (or part of it) to see the golden footage of the wine tasting/review process in action.
Behind the scenes video of the tasting of the Penfolds 2024 Collection.