THE PENFOLDS HEALTH CHECKS ARE PURE MARKETING GENIUS
The globe-trotting Penfolds recorking clinic was in Vancouver last week, the second time they have stopped in B.C. in the last decade to offer a health check on any Penfolds wine 15 years or older.
It’s one of the most brilliant marketing plans in the entire consumer goods business and it’s flawlessly executed by the Penfolds team. As a collector, I have never been contacted by any other winery proposing to check the health of their wine in my cellar.
Penfolds, on the other hand, has held countless clinics worldwide to check up on the health of its wines, and here’s where the genius comes in — they get to meet their most important customers and those customers get to meet the Penfolds winemaking team.
Chief winemaker Peter Gago is the pointy end of the Penfolds pyramid: bright, energetic, engaging, and when he meets you, you are likely to become a customer for life.
The re-corking clinics were inspired by one of the world’s finest multi-regional blends, Penfolds Grange, but you can pretty much bring any Penfolds wine to the clinic and have it inspected by the team.
Over the last 25 years, Penfolds has examined some 130,000 bottles. The majority are declared to be in excellent condition, but if a bottle shows sign of imperfection, that is when the fun begins. After a chat about the providence of your bottle, the team checks it visually. If the fill level is low or the corks show signs of leakage, they pull the cork and taste the wine with the owner. (Bonus 1: You get to taste a wine you might not drink for another decade or two).
If the wine is deemed to be what it should be for its age, the 15-millilitre sample taken from the bottle is replaced using the same vintage, or a younger one, to restore the bottle to full. The wine is then re-corked and tagged, and all the information is digitally stored where it can be checked decades down the road should the wine reappear at auction. (Bonus 2: You get a new cork and a topped-up bottle certified by Penfolds to put back in the cellar for decades, if you want, and it’s all free.)
There is a catch. Your original unopened bottle could be worth the cost of new car when you go into the clinic, but should the team fail to approve its condition, it could be worth nothing when you come out. As Gago would say: “We try to manage expectations at one end, but we have to be ruthless once that cork is out, because it’s our reputation that is at stake down the road.” As they like to say, they are improving the breed of the aftermarket by eliminating suspect bottles.
Over two and half decades of clinics, the team has found personal storage of fine wine has improved dramatically, and so have the corks. While they have a good idea what your wine is worth, they never wade into the evaluation game. That’s left to a Christie’s fine wine employee on hand to oversee proceedings — and, if you like, to chat about the current value of your wine at auction.
Finally, Bonus 3: Not only do registered bottle owners get to meet Gago and his team, they also have lunch and are given the chance to taste the latest Penfolds collection, including the 62nd consecutive vintage release of Grange.
True to philosophy, Gago says, the collection can be “opened and enjoyed now, or potentially over the next four or more decades.” We will catch up with most of the wines in the weeks to come, but for collectors a word or two about the 2012 Grange Bin 95 ($745):
In my estimation, Grange 2012 Bin 95 is certainly the most complete young Grange ever released, and is a wine that frankly surpasses anything founder Max Schubert could have ever imagined. As thrilling as the boisterous 2010 is, it doesn’t have that Euro charm and finesse the 2012 exudes at such a young age.
Balance is the lead attribute of this multi-regional blend, which is an essay in textural perfection. In a rare occurrence, after the exchange rate, Grange 2012 is selling for about 20 per cent less in Canada than the United States. If properly stored — and checked 25 years down the road at a Penfolds re-corking clinic — it could keep well past 2070.