BOTTLE STOP
Let’s play a word association game: I say “Penfolds”, you say…
The answer, of course, should be “Grange”, Australia’s most famous wine.
Every October, the latest release is revealed, points and comments are published and, inevitably, the price is discussed and value for money noted.
For the record, it’s $850 a bottle, and I award the latest-release Penfolds 2013 Grange 97/100 now but perhaps more in a decade or two. To decide if it’s worth the money, the only answer is to compare it with buying a Rolls-Royce or a Rolex.
It is the ultimate special-occasion wine that causes most people to gasp and shudder in its presence – and that’s probably without even tasting it.
There are other Penfolds reds that excite as pure wine experiences for a fraction of the cost. Penfolds 2015 Bin 389 ($95) is a stunningly good cabernet-shiraz (98 points), while the two $45 Bin 28 Kalimna multi-SA regional and Bin 128 Coonawarra shiraz offer very different and impressive styles.
But there’s more to the Penfolds clan than the reds, especially when it comes to chardonnay, which is where the main focus fell in the early to mid-1990s; to develop a so-called “White Grange”. Two decades on and the wine that has since fought off that title to become its own fine individual is the Yattarna, which has for several years now incorporated Tasmanian fruit in cahoots with NSW’s Tumbarumba, Adelaide Hills and southern Victorian grapes.
Tasmania is going to provide more and more in the future, according to chief winemaker Peter Gago, who doesn’t like talking too much about climate change but gets down to business and looks south to Tassie to source increasing volumes of its invaluable chardonnay fruit.
“Going forward, we look to engage more and more in Tasmania,” he says.
Penfolds 2015 Yattarna ($150) sources primarily from the Derwent and Coal River valleys as well as the Central Highlands, and also includes a smaller proportion from the Adelaide Hills. It spends eight months in French barrique barrels, with 65 per cent of those new oak.
It is an extraordinary chardonnay in anyone’s language, with expressive fruit notes, subtle oak and lees influences, green apple and pink grapefruit acidity and pithiness, as well as an exotic spice lift mid-palate that lingers and reverberates.
Its price may seem stratospheric, but in global terms it is world-best practice and sends a message that Tasmania is among the most significant places in the southern hemisphere to deliver such quality.