Penfolds

Penfolds is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery — Campbell Mattinson's highest honour.
South Australia

If you deleted the story and the history of Penfolds – which was established, remarkably, in 1844 – and just judged the Penfolds wines as they rest in the glass today, it would still be a runaway champion of Australian wine.

The case.

Penfolds is a great chardonnay maker, and would make it onto this 10-Star list on the strength of its chardonnay releases alone. It is a great shiraz maker, as Penfolds St Henri Shiraz proves year after year, as of course does Penfolds Grange. It is a great producer of cabernet sauvignon – Bin 707 and Bin 407 – and of rich, ripe, unafraid-of-oak red wine styles in general, the latter now extending to releases from California, Bordeaux, Champagne, the southern Rhone and China.

Penfolds makes, simply, wines that people build the Australian section of their cellar around. In the Wineark List of Australia’s Most Collected Wines, Penfolds has seven entries (more than any other producer), including the top three (Penfolds Grange, Penfolds St Henri and Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz).

The reputation and status of Penfolds is, though, built around Australia’s most significant wine, Penfolds Grange, and will forever be. It’s made mostly with shiraz. It has an unbroken line of production dating back to 1951. Every new release is history made anew.

There are many wines in the Penfolds range but – a crucial point – there is never any such thing as a bad Penfolds wine. Every Penfolds wine is good, better or great. The wings of Penfolds have expanded over the years, to new territories and tables, not to mention price points. But the armoury of wines released under the Penfolds name each year is, in quality terms, bulletproof.

And then there are exquisite wines like the Penfolds Bin 180 Cabernet Shiraz 2021.

The wines that make the case.

Penfolds Grange Shiraz 1990 (South Australia): The wine’s balance, the firmness, the authority. The length. And more than anything, the beauty.
Penfolds Grange Shiraz 2022 (South Australia): It has grunt for certain but it’s the spread; swallowing here is like watching a storm roll through in reverse. It just keeps cascading on, impacting as it goes.
Penfolds Yattarna Chardonnay 2024 (Adelaide Hills, Tasmania, Tumbarumba): This is a wine. It’s so neat, so wild, so powerful and so refined, with finesse as a finishing act.
Penfolds St Henri 2023 (South Australia): Winefront.

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See more [71 reviews of Penfolds Grange] published on The Winefront site, 1952–2022.
See more [59 reviews of Penfolds St Henri] published on The Winefront site, 1956–2023.
See more [49 reviews of Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz] published on The Winefront site, 1961–2024.

See also [Penfolds Yattarna – Every Vintage] Reference

Penfolds is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery – the highest honour awarded by Australian wine critic Campbell Mattinson. 10-Star status recognises one thing: the quality of the wine in the glass, every glass, across the range. The full list of 10-Star Wineries constitutes Australia's Best Wineries.