Peter Gago: Decanter Hall of Fame 2021

Very few winemakers have the kind of gig that Peter Gago has – global ambassador for 177-year-old company Penfolds, the source of Australia’s most famous wine, Grange. Penfolds has been rated at various times as either the world’s most successful wine brand or at least one of the top 10, and Gago heads a winemaking team that is charged with producing wines increasingly in the realm of luxury goods.

Peter Gago is the fourth Australian to receive the Decanter Hall of Fame award, after Max Schubert in 1988, Len Evans in 1997 and Brian Croser in 2004. That two of the four are winemakers for the same producer, Penfolds, is unique in the Hall of Fame.

Gago has been chief winemaker at Penfolds for 19 years, having taken over from John Duval in 2002. As such he is only the fourth person to have the responsibility for Australia’s most famous wine, Penfolds Grange Shiraz, in the 70 years since it was created in 1951 by Max Schubert.

Scroll down to see Peter Gago’s five life-changing bottles

Although the Penfolds winemaking team is much more than Gago (there are eight other winemakers today, plus two for the fortified wines), he is the one with the profile. He is internationally famous, a vinous rock-star. Winemaking in any large company is a team effort, but the example set by the leader of that team is of utmost importance.

Early enthusiasm…

Gago himself seems to have been purpose-built for the job. A Melbourne University pure mathematics and science graduate (specialising in chemistry) and then a secondary school maths and science teacher, he has the confidence and presence of a born educator. His ‘gift of the gab’ was likely honed in his eight years in the classroom.

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, northern England, in 1957, Gago was six when his family migrated to Melbourne, where he grew up. His parents were only occasional wine drinkers, although ‘Dad would have a glass if there was a bottle open’.

His wife Gail’s family were much more winey. Of Dalmatian background, her father Mijo Darveniza was Australian-born, kept a cellar and a vineyard called Excelsior at Mooroopna near Shepparton, Victoria, which had been planted in 1871 by Mijo’s great-uncle Trojano. Gago chuckles as he reflects on family politics: ‘The Darvenizas were a strong Country Party [conservative] family and they produced two daughters who became rabid Labor politicians!’

In his early career, Gago had great success as a teacher, including at Carwatha High School, where he was the science coordinator and taught maths. ‘My Year 12 classes had a 100% pass rate, but in my last year of teaching, one failed, which spoiled my record.’ Gago, it seems, was always precocious. He was a faculty leader in his 20s: ‘I had a very liberal-minded principal who fast-tracked things for me. I loved teaching. I’d go back to it tomorrow.’

During his time teaching in Melbourne, from 1979 to 1986, Gago’s budding interest in wine was stimulated by attending Box Hill College of Technical and Further Education (TAFE), where the famous oenologist Ian Hickinbotham taught a short course, Basic Scientific Winemaking. Gago and a fellow teacher at Moorleigh High School, David Lloyd, would drive to Coonawarra towing a trailer loaded with 44-gallon drums, pick grapes at Majella, tow the grapes back to Melbourne and make wine. Lloyd became a winemaker himself, and today makes Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at Eldridge Estate on the Mornington Peninsula. ‘On one occasion, we pressed the grapes at Bowen Estate, and on the way back to Melbourne some of it started fermenting – the froth was flying out, and the car behind us had to have its wipers going.’

Rewards of patience

His 38-year marriage (and 42 years together) to Gail Gago, a now-retired South Australian state politician, has helped the winemaker on multiple levels. ‘She keeps me grounded,’ he admits. ‘She’s smart, and she’s a much more responsible person.’

Gail’s first career was as a registered nurse, one of the first to be degree-qualified. She ran the South Australian branch of the Australian Nurses Federation, then went back to university to study neurophysiology. Gail worked on ear surgery and the multi-channel cochlear implant – an Australian invention. But the only place she could get a job was in the US, on low pay, so they moved to South Australia and Peter went to study winemaking at Roseworthy Agricultural College. They married in 1983.

With status from his previous degree, Gago could have taken the abbreviated graduate diploma, but – ever thorough – he elected to do the full oenology degree course. No surprise that Gago graduated dux of the course. Vintage jobs followed, including at Mountadam and Primo Estate, then, in 1989, his big chance arrived at Penfolds. ‘I was offered jobs at other big wineries, but I didn’t want to work in a cellar for years – I felt older, as I wasn’t straight out of school. Penfolds had a job going as sparkling winemaker working with Ed Carr, who I knew at the time.’

After four years working on sparkling wine, Gago moved across to the Penfolds winemaking team in 1993. In 1994, he was given the title of company oenologist, then in mid-2002 he succeeded John Duval as chief winemaker.

Inspiring style

Under Gago’s management, the Penfolds red wine style has been refined and made more elegant, with a lighter hand on the oak treatments and finer tannins. There was a time a young Grange, for example, was not a wine you wanted to drink for at least 10 years. Now they’re approachable earlier because of the refinements, and there’s no better example than the new 2017 release. Gago agrees that the quality of oak available today is a far cry from the eras of Schubert and Don Ditter.

At the same time, however improbable it may seem, the concentration of flavour in the top-end wines, dubbed The Penfolds Collection, seems to have ramped up in recent years. So, while the prices have soared skywards, the calibre of what’s in the bottles has kept pace. Gago has managed this evolution of the Grange – and indeed the Penfolds – style with great dexterity, gradually, and without risking alienating die-hard fans.

‘Gago has managed the evolution of the Grange–and indeed the Penfolds – style with great dexterity, gradually.’

Penfolds as a whole has also been more creative under his tenure than any chief winemaker since Max Schubert. Schubert was a peerless experimenter – Grange itself was an experiment, the 1951 not referred to as a Grange until years later, after fame had arrived. There were more ‘special bins’ under Ditter and Duval, but under Gago there has been a feast for collectors. Indeed, many of the special releases (and there’s always at least one a year these days) are unashamedly aimed at collectors, with prices that ensure they’re well out of reach of ordinary mortals.

But there have been fabulous wines of great richness and potential longevity, all inspired by the famous Schubert special bins, such as Bin 60A Cabernet Shiraz 1962, widely regarded as the greatest Australian wine ever made.

Culture of innovation

There have been luxuriously priced one-offs, but Penfolds during Gago’s era has also added several top-end wines which are released annually. Then, in 2017, Penfolds confounded observers with the release of a new collectible wine, g3, blended from three vintages of Grange: 2014, 2012 and 2008. There were 1,200 bottles; and the price? A$3,000. The concept isn’t new: both Vega Sicilia and Chapoutier have done something similar. But it was new for Australia. It was followed up in 2020 with g4, a blend of four vintages: 2016, 2008, 2004 and 2002. Only 2,500 bottles were produced, at A$3,500 a pop. In 2019, Penfolds released a one-off Bin 111A Clare/Barossa Shiraz 2016 (A$1,500) to mark the company’s 175th birthday.

Amid this feverish creative activity, Gago at the head of things was secretly blending up a storm in France with Champagne house Thiénot. The wines were debuted in 2019 – a suite of three 2012 vintage wines: a blanc de blancs, blanc de noirs and a cuvée. A rosé will be next. Then last year Penfolds unveiled its Californian project – four red wines, two being blends of Californian and Barossa grapes – with the range launching in February 2021. Where Penfolds’ Australian wines are labelled ‘Wine of Australia’, these blends were labelled, rather grandly, ‘Wine of the World’.

Waiting in the wings is Bordeaux wine from Château Cambon La Pelouse in the Haut-Médoc. This property was purchased in 2019 by Penfolds’ owner Treasury Wine Estates. A Bordeaux/South Australia blend is not out of the question.

Penfolds is today truly an international wine company, and Gago is its spiritual leader. It’s hard to imagine a man more suited to the task. And it’s hard to imagine him doing anything else.

Take five: important bottles in the life of Peter Gago

The young Gago first became entranced by wine while a student at Melbourne University. ‘I started collecting right from the start. A lot of early 1970s Penfolds, including Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon – I paid $19.95 at High Y Cellars in Ashburton. That was a lot of money then. I recently opened one of those for a friend’s 50th birthday. It was 1969, from a very wet year, but it drank remarkably well.’

Gago also invested in 1950s Seppelt Great Western reds, Henri Jayer Burgundies including Echézeaux and Cros Parantoux by the case, and Wynns Coonawarras from the 1950s when Wynns had a clearing sale. ‘While my mates were buying cars, I was buying great wine. I could buy houses with those wines now!’

An old Penfolds, St Henri (probably 1962)

‘I say “probably” because I don’t really know – it was the first “proper” red I ever tasted, with a friend, when we were both very young. I suspect it was oxidised (it came from a long-sitting decanter). Ironically I didn’t return to this “style” for many years, as I was told upon sipping that “this is a wine my auntie drinks” – not a great endorsement for a pubescent male. I know better now!’

Château Latour 1878 (from magnum)

‘Sorry… but, at an intimate dinner at the château in Pauillac, its very generous president Frédéric Engerer poured only the great vintages of Latour up to the nineties (the 1990s!): perfectly curated bottles that had never left the property. This magnum of 1878 was impeccable. Resplendent for 20 minutes in the glass before flinching – a Bordeaux time-capsule.’

Krug 1943

‘I’m not sure whether this is a recognised great vintage or not… yet it is undeniably from Krug’s 100th anniversary year, and created two years prior to the end of World War II. Memorable, because I suspect there was a zero left off its price! Shared with two friends in London. Little bubble, dormant at first. And then… an amazing release that defied its age.’

Henri Jayer, Echezaux 1978

‘Bought at release in Melbourne, and in some quantity, along with many other gems from the late, great Henri – at a time before the Jayer fame (and pricing) had reached Australia. Cases and cases of his wines shared with friends. Sadly, but a handful cellared. No matter. Certainly our instant conversion to the spoils of Burgundy and Pinot Noir – without endorsement!’

Penfolds, Grange Cabernet 1953

‘None other than a Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon from 1888-planted vines at Kalimna, a 4ha Penfolds monopole. Perceptually, a “non-conforming” Penfolds red – single-vineyard/Cabernet/Barossa! This particular bottle I remember completely overwhelmed the senses.’

See all Decanter’s Penfolds scores and tasting notes

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