Penfolds releases Californian-Australian Wine of the World for £545/$700

Australian winery Penfolds, already an international name thanks to its best-known Shiraz-based wine Grange, has taken another audacious step in its global ambitions.

Today it announced the release of its 2021 California Collection: four wines produced in California but made to an Australian winemaking template.

Two of the four, blending Californian and Australian fruit from the 2018 vintage, are branded Wine of the World. It is a bold move – which will no doubt upset some more conservative commentators – and breaks with many conventions.

Scroll down to see how our Australian and US tasters each rate the Penfolds California Collection wines

First, it asserts the distinctly Australian flavour of blending Cabernet Sauvignon with Shiraz. Second, it labels both the Quantum Bin 98 Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz and Bin 149 Cabernet Sauvignon under the global Wine of the World appellation. And third, Quantum comes with a release price of £545 or $700.

Such moves are the latest in a stream of headline-grabbing products for Penfolds, though it actually represents the result of a two-decade exploration of Californian possibilities. Creating Wines of the World will certainly achieve those headlines, but do the they actually live up to the marketing? Scroll down and see our reviews…

Penfolds in California: a 20-year project

The seeds of this venture began in 1997 when Penfolds bought Camatta Hills Estate in the Paso Robles AVA of California’s Central Coast (previously the Craston 600 Ranch). It took two years to plant about 16ha to vines – including many cuttings sourced from Penfolds’ famed Kalimna and Magill Estate vineyards in South Australia.

While fruit from Camatta Hills has since been sold to other California wineries, parcels were reserved and blended for trials from the 2006 and 2007 vintages, but never released by Penfolds.

Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago and Australian winemaking colleagues Steph Dutton and Andrew Baldwin travelled to California for blending tests of fruit from the Camatta Hills vineyard and other purchased Napa Cabernet parcels during the 2017 vintage – but these were not followed through to production.

The team tried different ideas on the tasting bench with 2018 vintage fruit. It resulted in four new reds that are now Penfolds’ first American-produced wines.

Gago insists the idea to combine Australian and Californian components occurred by happy accident, deciding on a whim to add portions from sample bottles of Penfolds’ Australian wines he had on hand.

‘There was no grand plan, apart from deliberately hunting for a Penfolds style,’ says Gago. ‘And I was prepared to keep experimenting to find it. It reflects our aspiration as winemakers to always keep moving forward.’

An Australian taste to Californian fruit

The result gave Gago what he desired in capturing the distinctive Penfolds stamp of rich and generous flavours on the mid-palate, with the influence of formic acid and slight volatile acidity playing significant minor roles in the structure of the resulting wines.

Penfolds’ 2021 California Collection represents a serious commitment, with 10,000 dozen bottles produced of both the Bin 600 California-designate Cabernet-Shiraz (£45/$50) and Bin 704 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (£60/£70).

Volumes of Quantum and Bin 149 (£125/$149), made from more elite parcels of fruit, are significantly less. The US market has the majority of the allocations, but portions will go to Australia, the UK, China and other countries.

Gago believes this series of wines will prove a valuable talking point in the US market, giving Penfolds a presence that will identify its wines separately from other premium-grade California Cabernets. ‘We know this project will be closely judged, but we’re very confident about the wines we are presenting,’ he asserts.

Gago is effusively enthusiastic about the wines, and it will be interesting to see how the Wine of the World story plays out, particularly with Quantum at such an ambitious price point.

Penfolds’ new Wine of the World and California releases

We asked David Sly in South Australia and Matthew Luczy, Decanter’s California correspondent based in Los Angeles, to taste these wines independently to see how both an Australian and American palate would assess these unique wines…

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