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  • Country ranking ?

    95
  • Producer ranking ?

    60
  • Decanting time

    4h
  • When to drink

    2020-2035
  • Food Pairing

    Lamb

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The Story

St Henri is a time-honoured and alternative expression of Shiraz, and an intriguing counterpoint to Grange. It is unusual among high quality Australian red wines as it does not rely on any new oak. It was created in the early 1950s (first commercial vintage 1957) and gained a new lease of life in the 1990s as its quality and distinctive style became better understood. Proudly, a wine style that hasn’t succumbed to the dictates of fashion or co...

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Vintage 2017

AUSTRALIA VINTAGE REPORT: The 2017 winegrape crush is estimated to be 1.93 million tonnes, based on responses received by the Wine Sector Survey 2017. This crush is 5 per cent higher than the 2016 final crush figure of 1.84 million tonnes (Department of Agriculture and Water Resources – Levies recorded figure). It is the third consecutive vintage where the tonnes crushed have increased.

Additional tonnes this year came relatively equally fr...

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Tasting note

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Written Notes

St Henri being such a different style of wine to most of the Collection, it is always a wine which attracts considerable attention. Overwhelmingly Shiraz, just a 3% dollop of Cabernet, it hails from McLaren Vale, the Barossa Valley, Eden Valley and Port Lincoln. The difference between this and so many of the Penfold's reds is that this wine spends a year in very large, very old oak vats. These vats are more than half a century in age. It means that the wine imparts no evidence of oak and is usually a more moderate, more subtle, more elegant style of wine. And so it proved here. A fine St Henri.

Florals, herbs, spices, red fruits. Beautifully fragrant. Some black olive notes and black currants emerge. The silkiest of tannins. Finely balanced. A wine that will age gracefully for many years. The team at Penfold's refer to it as ‘polished’, an apt descriptor. 94.

It is worth mentioning that the annual release of St Henri tends to offer more highs and lows than most in the Collection. A wine like the 2010 St  Henri closely rivalled even the magnificent Grange of that year. 1990, 1996 and 2012 are other stars. Other times, they can fall well short. For the record, there is already hype emerging about how good the 2018 St Henri is, but we’ll have to wait a year to confirm that.

 

  • 94p

St Henri (2017; AUD $135) is, as usual, one of the most charming wines in the range and the bottle somehow always empties the quickest. Very ripe blackberry fruit, tar and graphite, concentrated, a wine of great complexity and completeness.

  • 96p

Deep crimson. Intense blackberry, mulberry roasted walnut aromas with herb garden, star anise notes. Inky textured wine with pure blackberry, mulberry fruits fine supple/ velvety tannins, lovely mid-palate generosity and underlying roasted walnut notes. Finishes brambly firm with plentiful espresso dark berry fruits. Very seductive and beautifully balanced St Henri with classic buoyant fruits and animated tannin ripeness. Lovely drinking now but keep for a while. Seal; screwcap 2024 – 2034 14.5% 95 points
 
A lovely traditional multi-sourced Australian maturation style that offers the complete Penfolds story and intrigue in a bottle! This should develop very well with further bottle age.
 
Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Eden Valley, Port Lincoln
 
Aged for 12 months in very old (50 years+) oak vats

  • 95p
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Information

Origin

Magill, South Australia

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