My personal Top 5 of the 2024 Penfolds Collection
To some extent you have to put price aside when you talk about Penfolds. The Penfolds ‘prestige tax’ is pretty high. But the wines in their style are excellent and it’s been demonstrated over and again that the ability of Penfolds’ best wines to improve as they mature is world class. Given that there are 28 wines (included the two Champagne releases) in the 2024 Penfolds Collection it’s not easy to nominate just five. But if someone donated me some reward points these are the wines I would hone in on.
This Top 5 is as promised in the commentary here.
Penfolds Bin 169 Cabernet Sauvingon 2022 (AU$300)
My review of Penfolds Bin 169 on The Winefront opened with the words “This is a wine. Rich in nature but it focusses, from the outset, on nailing the finish.” It concluded with the words “Tannin here is a feature, and a key to its success. Tannin here seems to gather up the wine and carry it on. This is a fantastic example of Cabernet Sauvignon, of the landscape of Coonawarra, at the hand of Penfolds.” Theme here is that it’s a Coonawarra cabernet with structure on its mind. It’s a top-flight Penfolds red and so it’s bold and curranty but it brings iron to the table and it uses it. If you have an anniversary or milestone in the long distant future you’d bank on this wine reaching it.
Penfolds Bin 169 is a wine that’s snuck up on me. Outside of the 1973, which didn’t grab me when I tasted it over 15 years ago, every release that I’ve seen since the 2008 is rated highly, with almost every one of them in 96/100 territory.
Penfolds St Henri Cabernet Shiraz 2021 (AU$135)
As I said in the commentary, St Henri Shiraz is (in a way) the Betamax of the Penfolds range; it’s the alternative route that never became the main route, but arguably should have. By that I mean that it’s the no new oak expression of shiraz, principally, but also that it’s the most unforced of the Penfolds reds. Penfolds St Henri Shiraz just simply is. It never jumps out at you, it never rants and raves, it waits its turn and then, before you know it, you’re hooked. The 2021 version is an exquisite example of exactly that. It’s not my highest pointed wine of this year’s releases, but it’s the one that I’d buy in a heartbeat. Review here.
“This (Penfolds CWT Bin 521) is the first time the might of the mighty Penfolds has been put behind a China-grown wine. Maybe it fizzles. Maybe it’s the start of a history we can’t yet imagine”
Penfolds CWT Bin 521 Cabernet Sauvignon Marselan 2022 (AU$150)
The price is a crying shame. I wish it was a third of that. And yet still I’m fascinated. This is the first wine Penfolds has made that is made 100% with China-grown grapes. If you want my full review, sure, go here. But here’s the thing: where’s the world of wine going? What will the world of wine look like in 25 or 40 or 60 years time? This is the first time the might of the mighty Penfolds has been put behind a China-grown wine. Maybe it fizzles. Maybe it’s the start of a history we can’t yet imagine.
And, as well, the wine itself does not look out of place in the Penfolds premium range. I gave it 94 points.
Penfolds Bin 704 Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 (AU$125)
We don’t get to see a lot of quality Napa Valley cabernet in Australia. And ok, I am factoring price in a fraction here; I scored this at 94 points, and truth is that I scored many of the other releases in the collection higher. But I love how uncompromised this wine feels, and I love how well it stands up to (Penfolds) wines priced at double or triple its price. This wine is rich, grunty, tannic and assertive, in a svelte way. It blows the table away. The tannin is so ‘at you’ that it almost throws the wine out of whack, which is something that I’d normally penalise but didn’t feel the need to here. This is a Penfolds wine, made with Napa cabernet, that throws its weight around, all soft and heavy at once.
Penfolds Bin 150 Maranaga Shiraz 2022 (AU$100)
Every year I play Penfolds Bin 150 Shiraz with a straight bat, and give it the score that it warrants. So I’ve given it some high-ish scores over the years. Personally though, it’s not a wine that I enjoy. Or not until this 2022 version. This is just such a beast of a shiraz that I had to concede defeat and admit that resistance is useless. You can almost hear the resignation written into to my formal review: “This is a monster. Big fruit, big oak, big tannin… It rocks”. It does. If you like your red wines big, this wine shows how it’s done.
That’s my five personal picks of the 2024 Penfolds Collection. Of course my number one pick, if price really wasn’t a consideration, would be the Bin 180 special release, because it has classic written all over it. In fact Bin 180 has inspired me to go digging around for my full set “Penfolds special release” notes, all of which currently sit on The Winefront site but which are not collected in one spot. I’ll fix that. Some of these Penfolds wines are special to Australia, and special to the world.
And I’d slip 2020 Grange in too if I could. But I’ll talk of that another time.