Penfolds Collection 2022: $1,000 Grange and new Bordeaux wines

The Penfolds Collection 2022 sees two new Bordeaux wines join an increasingly global family, as well as the release price of the Australian company’s flagship Grange topping A$1,000 (£570/$680) for the first time.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of the 21 releases in the Penfolds Collection 2022

The Bordeaux wines are the latest international blending ventures for Penfolds, following last year’s release of four California reds. Two of these were the company’s inaugural Wines of the World, uniting Californian and South Australian fruit.

And word has it that the Penfolds Collection 2023 will feature a Chinese-Australian collaboration.

Penfolds’ French connection

The first of the 2019 Bordeaux wines is Penfolds II – a partnership with Dourthe. Another Wine of the World designate, Dourthe provided the Cabernet Sauvignon (59%) and Merlot (12%) from its Château Belgrave and La Garde properties.

Vinified in Bordeaux, these components were then shipped to South Australia in stainless steel tanks, blended with Shiraz from the company’s Barossa Valley vineyards and matured in French and American oak barriques and hogsheads for 18 months.

The Penfolds II name represents the two winemakers, chief winemaker Peter Gago and his counterpart at Dourthe, Frédéric Bonnaffous, ‘coming together to express quality through a harmonious blend of traditional French winemaking techniques and time-honoured Australian winemaking methods’.

The second 2019 Bordeaux wine is the FWT 585 (French Winemaking Trial). It is the first Penfolds wine made from parent company Treasury Wine Estates‘ recently acquired Bordeaux properties in Haut-Médoc: Châteaux Cambon la Pelouse, Belle-Vue and De Gironville.

A blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot and 13% Petit Verdot, it is Penfolds’ interpretation of a Bordeaux blend, made at Cambon la Pelouse by Penfolds senior winemaker Emma Wood.

And how did Gago – Decanter’s 2021 Hall of Fame recipient – expect the Bordelais to receive these wines? ‘It will definitely get them talking!’ he said in typically playful fashion.

‘Nothing stands still in wine,’ added Gago. ‘It’s very exciting that Penfolds can become part of the French wine conversation.’

‘Just like our California wines…. we have the French sun above and soil beneath, but everything in between is Penfolds!’

Ongoing collaborations and new blends

The Dourthe partnership is an adjunct to the Penfolds Champagne project that began with Thiénot in 2019. ‘The proposition of what could be achieved if we extended this idea to table wine was met with interest in Bordeaux,’ says Gago.

But he added that, in some ways, these international blending ventures are ‘our reaction to global warming affecting grape harvests’. He explained: ‘It plugs into our risk management about how to make the best possible wines from the best possible fruit – wherever that may be.’

The ventures are ongoing collaborations – underlined by the second vintage of three Californian wines in the Penfolds Collection 2022 releases.

These join signature Australian wines including 2018 Grange, 2019 St Henri and 2020 Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon and Yattarna Chardonnay.

And like a naughty schoolboy who can’t contain his excitement, Gago concluded the Penfolds Collection 2022 preview in Melbourne on 7 June by revealing his next blending trick. Like the G5 Grange, it’s a multi-vintage super-Chardonnay, comprising five vintages of Yattarna blended together.

Code-named V, the cuvée features 20% each of the 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016 and currently unreleased 2021 vintages. Gago says this ‘perfect vision’ of Yattarna Chardonnay from across a decade ‘should get everyone out of their comfort zone’.

With a label design still under wraps, the Yattarna blend is expected to be released before the end of 2022. The other Penfolds Collection 2022 wines are available from 4 August.

Penfolds Collection 2022: £1000 Grange and two new Bordeaux wines

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