Penfolds' new wine is controversial and boasts a super-sized price tag. What's the fuss about?
What should we make of the latest crazily priced Penfolds wine, the French-Australian shiraz, Penfolds-Jaboulet La Grange? Is it just marketing?
―A.C., Wangaratta, VIC
Wine has long had one foot in the luxury business. First Growth Bordeaux, Château d'Yquem and grand cru Burgundy have been luxury wines for centuries. Now California, Tuscany, Champagne and dozens of other regions have luxury wines because there are more prosperous people in the world who want to drink them. Penfolds' owner, Treasury Wine Estates, is committed to joining the global luxury goods business.
The controversial wine is a 50/50 blend of Penfolds Grange with one of the most exalted French wines, Paul Jaboulet's Hermitage La Chapelle, which is also a syrah (shiraz). Both parts are 2021 vintage and the price is $3500 for one bottle. To some collectors, it doesn't matter that they could buy a bottle of each and blend them in their kitchen for a lot less money ($1800).
International blending of wine isn't rare. Jacob's Creek bottles and Coolabah casks had Chilean wine in them last century when – it's hard to believe now – we had a shortage of grapes.
Up until the early 20th century, it was common, in Bordeaux, to blend wine from other parts of France to bolster its red in bad years. Château Palmer revived this recently with its Historical XIXth Century Wine, which blends Rhône Valley syrah with Bordeaux cabernet and merlot.
Penfolds also makes special bottlings that blend South Australia wines with those from California and Bordeaux.
'Collectors could buy a bottle of each and blend them in their kitchen for a lot less money ($1800).'
At the end of the day, the Penfolds-Jaboulet La Grange is sure to be a bloody fine wine. Indeed, all of the Pennies wines with the super-sized price tags that I've tasted over the years are excellent and very age-worthy, so they satisfy the collector/speculator buyer as well as the wine-loving drinker.
It's not for me – it's not aimed at anyone on a wine-writer's budget – but I don't have a complaint about the fact that it exists, as some critics evidently do.
Psst! If anyone out there has a bottle of the La Grange, I'd love to try it.
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