Penfolds Grange Shiraz 2022
Penfolds Grange Shiraz 2022
A$1000, 14.5% alcohol, cork, South Australia.
Campbell Mattinson scores the 2022 Penfolds Grange 98 points – a cooler-vintage release held at $1000 for a fifth straight year.
Wine: Penfolds Bin 95 Grange Shiraz 2022
Score: 98 points – Campbell Mattinson
Price: $1000 RRP (unchanged for five years)
Blend: 97% Shiraz, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon
Maturation: 18 months in 100% new American oak
Regions: Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Coonawarra
Status: Heritage Icon of South Australia; unbroken line since 1951
The media event for the latest Penfolds Collection 2026 wines was held at the SkyCity Casino in Adelaide. I haven’t spent a lot of time at this venue but a couple of years ago, late at night, I found myself there with wine writer Max Allen. We sat to the side of the bar, in among the ding-dong of tables and machines, and drank cheap whisky, or at least I did. Max Allen now describes this late-night casino experience as “terrible”; I describe it as “wonderful”. In the midst of a TWE/Penfolds share price that has fallen by two-thirds or more over the past few years, and of news that Penfolds has stopped taking new orders for Bin 407 in China for the whole of Q1 FY26/27, it seemed strangely apt to hole up at a casino to taste the latest wines.
The 2022 Grange is a blend of 97 per cent Shiraz and 3 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon, sourced from the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra.
The wine spent 18 months in new American oak hogsheads, 100 per cent new: the same basic maturation regime Grange has run since its experimental 1951 beginnings.
Its stated figures are 14.5 per cent alcohol, a pH of 3.70 and total acidity of 6.9 grams per litre. At 14.5 per cent it holds the alcohol number Grange has carried, almost without exception, since the mid-2000s. Read the full analysis of [Penfolds Grange Alcohol Levels 1951-2022].
The 2022 season was cool and even across South Australia. Hail in late October cut yields, Barossa Shiraz especially, and the fruit arrived as small berries – making for a structured, long-lived Grange rather than an early-drinking one (not that there’s any such thing).
In a cute touch, Penfolds nominates a drinking window for 2022 Grange of 2028–2075: no less than a 47-year drinking window (and 53 years from vintage). It’s built to outlast most of us all, if they’re right.
Despite the 75th-anniversary billing (Penfolds Collection 2026: Ten Things You Should Know), the price is still A$1000 – unchanged across the last five releases. Factor in five years of inflation, and that steady number makes the 2022 cheaper in real terms than the 2018 was.
Penfolds Grange Shiraz 2022 and The Penfolds Collection 2026 will be released on August 6, 2026.
2022 Penfolds Grange Review: There’s a brightness to this release, redcurrants and plums, red cherries even, semblances of dried herbs, saltbush, mace, peppercorns. Crushed ant character is apparent here both on the nose and on the palate but it rolls through with graphite and all that red brightness. Great tannin to this release. Great integration to the oak, which comes across like powdered milk chocolate but which has settled extraordinarily well. I kept coming back to the tannin of this wine. 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. It’s a cooler year, it’s not a blockbuster, it’s more 1999 than 1998, but it has length and tannin like you wouldn’t believe and for that, I think it’s a ripper. 98 points – Campbell Mattinson
Read more:
A selection of Penfolds Grange reviews can be read on this site via the [Penfolds Grange tag].
There’s a wealth of Penfolds information, analysis and reviews available at Mattinson’s [Penfolds] content hub.
The Winefront site has an outstanding collection of independent Penfolds Grange reviews spanning the entire 1952-2022 range available – here.
The Winefront has full independent coverage of every wine in the [2026 Penfolds Collection].
Penfolds is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery – Campbell Mattinson’s highest honour.
Campbell Mattinson has tasted every commercial release of Penfolds Grange from the 1952 Penfolds Grange through to the current release of Penfolds Grange inclusive.
