Penfolds – Grange 2020 (750ml)

Winemaker Notes

The most powerful expression of Penfolds multi-vineyard, multi-district blending philosophy, Grange is arguably Australias most celebrated wine and is officially listed as a Heritage Icon of South Australia. Crafted utilising fully ripe, intensely flavoured and structured Shiraz grapes, the result is a unique Australian style that is now recognised as one of the most consistent of the worlds great wines. With an unbroken line of vintages from the experimental 1951, Grange clearly demonstrates the synergy between Shiraz and the soils and climates of South Australia.

Professional Ratings

97Wine Enthusiast
The 2020 vintageharvested at the start of a global pandemicwas a difficult one. But the quality of Australia\’s most collected wine hasn\’t slipped. Tightly wound, it\’s restrained, classic, comfy in its own skin without having to shout. Plump plum, cedar, ground pepper, vanilla and the charred pan scrapings of a roast: it\’s all there. It\’s a powerful wine, thanks to a mouth-full of hefty tannins, but they\’re well-integrated, setting this up for a very long life ahead. Christina Pickard
96Wine Spectator
This is dense, dark and brooding up front, showcasing gravel and hot cast iron flavors that show a hint of wintergreen. The second sip is much more revealing, with generous flavors of morello cherry, blackberry preserves, cassis and chocolate truffle cake, along with spice, pepper and earth notes that are complex, deep and long. The dense tannins have a firmness that suggests a long life in the cellar, as does the crescendo of complexity on the finish. Drink now through 2044.
95Robert Parker\’s Wine Advocate
The 2020 Grange comprises 97% Shiraz and the balance Cabernet Sauvignon from McLaren Vale (48%), Barossa Valley (40%) and Clare Valley (12%), and it matured for 20 months in American oak hogsheads, 100% new. While the metric of regions changes each season and the proportion of Shiraz changes slightly, the levage and style remain the same. Aromatically, the wine is black and savory, with crushed ant, black peppercorn, blueberry, blackberry and licorice/aniseed. In the mouth, the wine feels lighter than some other vintages on release. There is something like clarity and perhaps a little hole in the mid-palateit sits like clarity or less density and also features as breathing space. A nice wine, it is lighter than the preceding 2019. Both vintages had their challenges, but this 2020 season has yielded an \”easier\” feeling wine.
95Vinous
This dense and brooding 2020 Shiraz Grange has all the elements for a long life with impressive levels of extract and tannins, but lacking the delicacy of a great vintage. It opens up with waves of tarry, licorice and cola aromas against a backdrop of firm, unyielding oak. Muscular, chalky tannins provide a strong frame to waves of blackberry flavor which build toward a drying finish. A couple more years in the cellar will bring all the pieces together before a two-decade drinking window.
94Decanter
The celebrated reputation of Grange places every new release under intense scrutiny, and this passes muster as sturdy and convincing, but without the stellar fireworks of 2019 or the instantaneous drink-now temptation of many from the past decade. Coming from the low-yielding 2020 vintage, a broad net was cast across McLaren Vale, Barossa and Clare to find the right mix of fruit parcels showing both concentration and complexity. With the modest addition of 3% Cabernet Sauvignon (noting that Penfolds did not release its elite Bin 707 and Bin 129 Cabernets from the 2020 vintage), this pulls tight focus on Shirazs primary allure blackberry and black plum rinsed in rich mocha and dark chocolate, piqued by a dusting of cinnamon, pepper and vanilla. This is made to be cellared, and will tell a more exuberant story in another decade.