When we arrived to Adelaide in Australia, I was already checking if I can get a tour and tasting in the famous Penfolds Estate. Fortunately it is situated in the city, so you don’t need a car to get there, the transport is just as good.
The tour and the tasting was quite expensive but hey! this is Penfolds after all. The first with there Grange to produce big, bold, hundred percent Shiraz with lots of american oak which has to be aged at least 5 to 10 years to settle down and give its best.
It was a very nice winery tour, only the 4 of us with our host. First we went to see where the founders, Dr. Christopher and Mary Penfold lived and started first their practice as a doctor and then made fortified wines. This house was still left on the same condition like in 1844.
After that we went back to the winery itself where there is a small wine museum with all the previous vintages of Penfolds Granges. We saw the secret tunnel, which was hidden for almost 10 years where Max Schubert was experimenting to make the most iconic wine of the country.
Our next and final step was, of course, to go to the tasting room where the wines were already poured out for us. We started with 2 Chardonnays, one was a reserve 2017 from Adelaide Hills and the second we a multi-regional 2016. Really good, serious Chardonnays with a good amount of oak aging with complex flavours and aromas, full body and a long finish.
Then we moved on to the reds, a multi-regional Shiraz from 2015 and a 2016 from the Barossa Valley and they showed us a Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 which comes from the Coonawarra region. I really enjoy Penfolds wines, with their perfect balance of oak usage, but deep and complex flavours and aromas with high quality. The are good food wines for me as well.
The last wine was the king, a 2014 Penfolds Grange. Amazing wine but still so young. I can’t wait to taste it in 10 years when it is going to show its best. I am not going to review this wine, you have to taste it!
The staff was really nice and knowlegable during my time there, they really know the story behind a label and can answer you every question that you have. An extra that at the cellar door when you enter you can choose different tasting options whitout the tour for much reasonable price and you can have the chance to taste almost the whole range that Penfolds produces.
Not the Grange by the way, for that you have to take the whole experience!
Have you already visited the Estate?
Did you try the Grange before? How do you like it? Do you think it is worth for the price?
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