Penfolds Yattarna
Australia's flagship white — the "white Grange" — read across thirty vintages, from the record Penfolds itself keeps.
Penfolds Yattarna Bin 144 Chardonnay is Penfolds' flagship white wine. It was launched in 1998 with the 1995 vintage, and is sourced from cool-climate vineyards across several Australian regions rather than a single site. I've tasted the first 1995 Yattarna, though not in a context where I was writing notes; I've never tasted the 1996, 1997, 1998 or 1999 releases. I have, though, tasted every release since — 2000 to 2024 inclusive — as well as Penfolds Yattarna V Chardonnay on two occasions.
The lowest score I've given any Yattarna is 93 points, for the 2003, with an accompanying — and, to my palate, relatively short — drinking window. I've also awarded 95, 96 and 97-point scores over the years, which the best-vintages list below sets out. The standard of Yattarna has been, and is, remarkably high.
Of all the Penfolds wines, Grange has the best story and the most storied lineage, and it routinely lives the longest — which matters to collectors. But if I were starting a collection of a single Penfolds wine now, it would be Yattarna. Chardonnay is Australia's single greatest grape variety, and Yattarna is an epic example of the marque.
The nameWhy "Bin 144"
The name records the trials. From 1992, across six vintages, the Penfolds winemaking team made and assessed more than one hundred experimental chardonnays — 144 of them in all — before deciding what Yattarna would be. The bin number is a memorial to that count.
The decision itself came on 8 November 1997, when the winemakers settled on three parcels of chardonnay, together designated Bin 144, to become the first Yattarna. The wine reached the public the following April: the 1995 vintage, launched in 1998, described at the time as the most eagerly awaited wine release in Australian history. The name Yattarna is drawn from an indigenous language, and means "little by little, gradually" — which is exactly what the wine has done, in quality, ever since.
MilestonesA short timeline
- 1995The first Yattarna vintage.
- 1998First commercial release.
- 2004First release sealed under screwcap.
- 2006First release to feature Tasmanian fruit.
- 2024Price rises $45 — 25.7% — to $220.
- Now22 vintages independently reviewed on The Winefront.
The recordVintage by vintage
Every vintage of Yattarna, with Penfolds' own stated sourcing, alcohol and oak. The first seven vintages sit apart: the wine finding its feet, its sourcing restless, before Penfolds itself drew a line. The modern era runs from 2002 — the vintage from which current Rewards of Patience assessments now begin, the earliest releases having been set aside as past their best.
| Vintage | Regions | Alc. | Oak (new) | Seal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The early vintages — 1995 to 2001 | ||||
| 1995 | Cool-climate (regions unstated) | 13.0% | 100% new | cork |
| 1996 | Cool-climate (regions unstated) | 13.5% | 100% new | cork |
| 1997 | Adelaide Hills, Henty | 13.0% | 100% new | cork |
| 1998 | Cool-climate (regions unstated) | 13.5% | — | cork |
| 1999 | Multi-regional (incl. Piccadilly) | 13.2% | 80% new | cork |
| 2000 | Tumbarumba, Adelaide Hills | 13.0% | new & 1-y.o. | cork |
| 2001 | Tumbarumba, Adelaide Hills | 13.5% | 60% new | cork |
| The modern era — 2002 onward | ||||
| 2002 | Adelaide Hills (75%), Tumbarumba (25%) | 13.5% | 55% new | cork |
| 2003 | Adelaide Hills (100% — Gumeracha 66%, Birdwood 34%) | 13.5% | 69% new | cork |
| 2004 | Henty (92%), Adelaide Hills (8%) | 13.5% | no new oak | screwcap |
| 2005 | Adelaide Hills † | 13.3% | 55% new | screwcap |
| 2006 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 38%), Adelaide Hills (36%), Henty (26%) | 13.0% | 45% new | screwcap |
| 2007 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 49%), Adelaide Hills (37%), Henty (14%) | 13.0% | 35% new | screwcap |
| 2008 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 87%), Adelaide Hills (13%) | 13.3% | 49% new | screwcap |
| 2009 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 50%), Henty (43%), Adelaide Hills (7%) | 12.7% | 40% new | screwcap |
| 2010 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 95%), Adelaide Hills (5%) | 13.0% | 57% new | screwcap |
| 2011 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 96%), Adelaide Hills (4%) | 13.0% | 64% new | screwcap |
| 2012 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 38%), Henty (36%), Adelaide Hills (26%) | 13.2% | 45% new | screwcap |
| 2013 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 90%), Adelaide Hills (10%) | 12.5% | 62% new | screwcap |
| 2014 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 73%), Adelaide Hills (27%) | 13.0% | 70% new | screwcap |
| 2015 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 84%), Adelaide Hills (16%) | 13.0% | 65% new | screwcap |
| 2016 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 51%), Henty (23%), Adelaide Hills (14%), Tumbarumba (12%) | 13.5% | 35% new | screwcap |
| 2017 | Tasmania (Derwent Valley, 44%), Tumbarumba (40%), Adelaide Hills (16%) | 13.0% | 50% new | screwcap |
| 2018 | Tasmania (72% — Coal River 30%, Tolpuddle 17%, Derwent Valley 10%), Tumbarumba (22%), Adelaide Hills (6%) | 13.0% | 60% new | screwcap |
| 2019 | Tasmania (57% — Bresnehan 42%, Rotherwood 14%), Tumbarumba (32%), Adelaide Hills (11%) | 12.5% | 55% new | screwcap |
| 2020 | Tasmania (68%), Adelaide Hills (32%) | 12.5% | 86% new | screwcap |
| 2021 | Tasmania (81% — Coal River 71%, Derwent Valley 10%), Tumbarumba (10%), Adelaide Hills (9%) | 13.0% | 70% new | screwcap |
| 2022 | Tumbarumba (61%), Tasmania (25% — Bresnehan), Adelaide Hills (13%) | 12.5% | 44% new | screwcap |
| 2023 | Tumbarumba, Adelaide Hills, Tasmania | 12.5% | 60% new | screwcap |
| 2024 | Adelaide Hills, Tasmania, Tumbarumba | 12.5% | 56% new | screwcap |
The migrationFrom the mainland to Tasmania — and from Derwent to Coal River
When you scroll through the list of regional sources for Yattarna, it's now overwhelmingly clear that Tasmania is this wine's dominant contributor. It wasn't always so, and it isn't always so — and the record of how Tasmania came to the fore is more interesting than the reputation suggests.
For its first decade it was a wine of the mainland. The Adelaide Hills sat at its centre; Tumbarumba in New South Wales and Henty in south-west Victoria filled out the blend. There is no Tasmania in Yattarna at all until 2006.
That vintage is the first hinge. Tasmania enters at 38%, and then — read the Derwent Valley figures down — it doesn't so much join the blend as annex it: 49% in 2007, 87% in 2008, and by 2010 and 2011 the wine is almost entirely Derwent Valley, at 95 and 96%. What began as a three-state blend had become, within five vintages, a Tasmanian wine with a splash of the Adelaide Hills.
Then a second, quieter shift, which almost nobody notes because it happens within Tasmania rather than between states. Through the late 2000s and early 2010s, "Tasmania" in Yattarna meant the Derwent Valley. From 2018 it means something else: Coal River, a different Tasmanian sub-region, which arrives at 30% that year and reaches 71% by 2021. Tolpuddle, Bresnehan and Rotherwood — vineyard names, not just regions — enter the record alongside it. So there are really two Tasmanian eras here, a Derwent era and a Coal River era, and the wine crosses from one to the other around 2018.
The mainland never entirely leaves. Tumbarumba, a bit-player for years, surges late — 40% in 2017, and an outright-leading 61% in 2022, the first modern vintage in which Tasmania is not the largest single component. A wine built on the principle of taking the best cool-climate parcels wherever they are found has, true to that principle, kept moving.
There is one more line to draw across this history, and it falls at the same place. The 2004 was the first Yattarna sealed under screwcap, and every vintage since has followed. It is no coincidence that the wine Penfolds now dates its modern era from, and the wine that first abandoned cork, are one and the same: the screwcap is part of what "modern Yattarna" means. A white wine built for the cellar, given a closure that protects it there.
The styleLighter in alcohol, not in power
The most important thing to say here is what this shift is not. Yattarna has grown lighter in alcohol, but not in flavour, fruit or power. The wine has lost none of its intensity or its length; if anything the reverse. What has changed is the alcohol figure, and it has moved down — quietly, deliberately, and against the usual direction of travel in Australian wine.
The wines of the 2000s sat, as a rule, between 13 and 13.5% alcohol. The wines of the last several years sit at 12.5%. Five of the six vintages from 2019 to 2024 are stated at 12.5%; the last Yattarna above 13% was the 2016. It is a small shift in absolute terms and a telling one in intent — a flagship white leaning further into tension, line and length while carrying the same weight of fruit, across the same years its sourcing was settling into that cool, Tasmania-and-Tumbarumba-led form. The two movements belong together: a wine that spent its first decade deciding what it was, and has spent its second refining it.
The best releasesWhich vintages to seek
Penfolds Yattarna in its modern guise is a taut wire with a flock of beautiful birds perched upon it. Acidity is key, as is freshness, as is power, as is tension. The worst time to assess Yattarna is in its absolute youth — or, to be more direct, when it's first released. The early releases were criticised for being too upfront, too unlikely to cellar well. Over time Penfolds took that criticism, rightly, to heart, and made sure it can rarely be levelled again. Yattarna is "little by little, gradually" by name, and little by little, gradually in nature now. In its youth the acidity can feel sharp — or better said, the wine can come across more as a thing of theory than of outright practical pleasure. It took the 2011 vintage a long time to sort itself out, for instance — but by golly it got there in the not-yet-end.
I say this in full disclosure: many of my assessments of Yattarna are pre-release. In an ideal world I'd experience these wines more often after release, not before.
Before I single out favourites, imagine you knew nothing about Yattarna, but had the chance to pull one bottle to drink from the full run, 1995 to 2024. Your odds of landing on a great one between 1995 and 2009 would be far more hit-and-miss than for almost any vintage from 2010 on. The wines since 2010 have generally been better, and — more importantly — are built to live longer. Let me put it plainly: you can largely throw a blanket over the Yattarna releases of 2010 to 2024 in quality terms. That's anti-fine-wine in a way, since vintage variation is part of the fascination. But given Yattarna's multi-region sourcing, and chardonnay's broad success in Australia, it isn't surprising.
Now to be specific. I love the 2006, and have loved drinking it both young and with age. I loved the 2008 on release (95 points), and if anything have come to enjoy it more as it's aged. Pre-2010, those are the two I'd most single out.
The 2010 is a beauty, though its drinking window is likely starting to run out of runway. The 2011 only seems to get better with time, and is still just clearing its throat — going nowhere in a hurry. Of the 2012, on release, I wrote: "So very neat, so very opulent, like a luxurious bed with the linen pulled tight." I scored it 96 — the same mark I'd given the 2006 and 2011 on release.
Things get a bit ridiculous, in terms of monotonous excellence, from the 2014 onward. I have every release since 2014 as a standout — that's my official view. If I throw personal preference into it, I'd single out the 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2024. Even then I can't whittle it down much. Most importantly, I have long drinking windows — long, in chardonnay terms — on all of them. As the 2011 proves, 20-plus years of bottle age for Yattarna is now entirely possible, and probable.
On the recordA note on the sources
Two Penfolds sources sit behind the table above, and they do not always agree.
The figures follow the ninth edition of The Rewards of Patience, Penfolds' own retrospective reference, wherever it gives them. The vintage release notes — written year by year, over three decades, by changing hands — are used where Rewards of Patience is silent. Where the two differ, Rewards of Patience is followed.
They differ more often than you might expect, and always in the same direction. For the 2012, 2013 and 2014, the release notes named an extra Tasmanian sub-region — Coal Valley in 2012 and 2013, the Central Highlands in 2014 — that Rewards of Patience later dropped, resolving each blend to a cleaner Derwent Valley and Adelaide Hills split. Whether the fruit changed or only the record of it did, we can't say. It is a small reminder that even a wine this documented is described, after the fact, with a tidying hand.
