Peter Gago

The High-Pressure Life Of A Famous Winemaker And His Wine: Peter Gago And Penfolds Grange

Regarded as one of the world’s finest wines, Penfolds Bin 95 Grange also serves as the iconic wine of Australia. Collectors pay impressive sums (upwards of $850 for a recent vintage) for this exquisite Australian Shiraz. However, unlike most of the world’s ultra-premium wine labels that only change hands in the rarified air of the one percent, Penfolds...

“The sixth Grange across six decades to weigh in at 100% Shiraz.”  - Penfolds Grange 2011

With above-average winter rainfalls and cool conditions that followed during the spring period, South Australian regions generally experienced a later budburst and viticultural pressures impacted to varying degrees across the state.

Meticulous vineyard management was critical. Spring soil moisture levels resulted in healthy shoot growth and ear...

PETER Gago’s first sip of Grange was not, as it is for so many other devotees, an epiphany. In fact, he hardly recalls the moment.

It was during his university days. “There was no ceremony ... It was all a bit of a blur,” he says. Instead, Gago’s appreciation of the drop evolved “as a gradual realisation … Grange became something that just made sense to me. It’s like death in a way, in the manner that you don’t know how to deal with it [Gra...

Born in Newcastle, England, Peter Gago and his family moved to Australia when he was six, settling in the cosmopolitan city of Melbourne, Victoria. After completing a Bachelor of Science from the University of Melbourne, Peter launched his career as a chemistry and mathematics teacher before succumbing to a long held interest in wine, often referred to as ‘the grip of the grape’ which saw Peter relocate to Adelaide and complete a Bachelor of A...