Penfolds RWT Shiraz 2017
Style: Red Wine
Variety: Shiraz
Closure: Screwcap
Penfolds RWT Shiraz 2017
Camberwell
Burke Road
Camberwell VIC 3124
Australia
Producer: Penfolds
Country: Australia
Region: Barossa Valley
Vintage: 2017
Critic Score: 98
Alcohol: 14.5%
Size: 750 ml
Drink by: 2045
Penfolds RWT Shiraz presents an admirable alternative to the multi-regional sourcing and American oak maturation that are hallmarks of Grange, expressing instead, single-region Barossa Valley Shiraz matured only in French oak. The initials RWT stand for 'Red Winemaking Trial', the name given to the project internally when developmental work began in 1995. Naturally, now no longer a 'Trial' RWT Shiraz was launched in May 2000 with the 1997 vintage. Its style is opulent and fleshy, contrasting with Grange, which is more muscular and assertive.
"Deep, vibrant colour; the bouquet is very expressive, speaking of a legion of black fruits, licorice, plum and spice, none of which prepare you for the sheer power of this amazing wine and its untold depths." James Halliday
RWT is typically inky and deep in colour, with sumptuous fruit sweetness, mouth-filling flavours, underlying spice, savoury nuances and chocolaty tannins. The wine is matured in new and seasoned French oak for around 12 to 15 months. The result is a wine that helps to redefine Barossa shiraz at the highest quality level.
The 2017 Penfolds RWT Shiraz is a 100% shiraz from premium vineyards in the Barossa Valley. The wine was matured for 15 months in French oak hogsheads (70% new and 30% 1-y.o.).
"Deep crimson. Intense elderberry, mulberry, liquorice and star anise aromas with toasty vanilla notes. Exuberant elderberry and blackberry fruits, chocolaty tannins and roasted chestnut, vanilla and ginger oak complexity. Finishes firm and inky with drying, almost sappy tannins. Elemental but still in balance. Peak drinking 2028 to 2040.
Vintage Conditions: Winter and spring rainfall were above the long-term average providing the vines with optimal soil moisture profiles. Most of the spring rain fell during September, with long-standing rainfall records broken. Windy conditions in October helped dry out the vineyards and ensured there were no significant frost events. November was cool with only a couple of minor frosts. The recorded temperatures over the growing season were generally cool, with only March above the long-term average, the second hottest recorded in 30 years. The prevailing cool conditions extended the growing season with flowering and veraison, both later than usual. Across the Barossa Valley, the shiraz berry and bunch weights were above average with optimal flavour and bright, vibrant colour." Penfolds
Expert reviews
"Spawned from a trial of French oak first made in 1997. Deep, vibrant colour; the bouquet is very expressive, speaking of a legion of black fruits, licorice, plum and spice, none of which prepare you for the sheer power of this amazing wine and its untold depths. Drink by 2042." James Halliday, Halliday Wine Companion - 98 points and Special Value Wine ★
"Medium deep colour. Intense dark cherry blackberry aromas with roasted chestnut dark chocolate notes. Well concentrated but elemental wine with deep set blackberry elderberry fruits, fine chocolaty tannins, new roasted chestnut vanilla oak notes and plentiful firm tannins. Finishes long and minerally. A lovely wine with Grange-like density, power and tension and the balance for a great cellaring career. Needs at least five years to fold into each other.” Andrew Caillard MW - 96 points
"Deep, brooding red/purple colour. The bouquet shows the smoky, coal-dusty, sooty and roasted meat Barossa shiraz characters. It's full-bodied and rich, soft textured and balanced, with a more elegant mien than usual for this wine. The fruit purity roars through this wine. Very full-bodied and of sumptuous flavour, it is big and concentrated but also superbly elegant. A really charming RWT. Oak is sensitively handled, and the wine has ballerina-like poise and balance, before a long and wholly satisfying aftertaste. Drink: 2021-2042." Huon Hooke, The Real Review - 96 points
"Stunning blueberries and mulberries here with a wealth of baking spices and red berries, as well as tarry notes and blackberries. It is all here. The palate has a super plush, rich and quite compressed tannin feel. Some firm and powerful moments, as the palate builds with plentiful spiced summer berries. Red plums and blackberries to close." James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com - 96 points
"A deep, dark, brooding ruby in colour, this RWT 2017 (from 'Red Winemaking Trial' originally developed in 1995) displays an intense yet subtly peppery and tarry fragrance with an added veneer of vanilla from its 15 months in new French oak. That intensity splashes onto the tongue in a profusion of flavours mingling opulently ripe black cherry with pepper, vanilla, tarry spice and herbs in a polished Barossa red that, thanks to the cooler growing season, shows an elegance of texture and balance through all the richness. At the same time, it has a seriously tongue-coating, chocolatey firmness in Barossa-meets-Côte Rôtie style. Chicken and game are great food options here." Anthony Rose, Decanter – 96 points
"This purely Barossa Valley driven shiraz was developed in the late 1990s to offer a contrast Grange when it comes to big-gun Penfolds shiraz. As the team describes it themselves: 'opulent and fleshy' rather than the 'more muscular and assertive' Grange. Talk about hitting the nail on the head with this 2017 outing. It's rich yet seductively crimson fruited with a very recognisable regional tilled red soil and rock background. Then comes some Mediterranean personality in the form of olives, capers and thyme aromatics drifting in and out as you taste, a spritely undercarriage of vintage specific acidity humming all the while. But there's no denying, this is all about a rich core of ripe Barossa-plum-like shiraz front, centre and finish." Tony Love - 96 points
"This walks in and takes over the joint. Sweetness, smokiness, creaminess, long chains of tannin, a general swagger. It's a prime wine, alpha, smooth as silk but hulked up too. All its doubts are ahead of it; for now, it has none. It has to be said that RWT always leans towards the syrupy and the too-soft but this release does a particularly good job of balance. Indeed it's as good an RWT as I've seen." Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front – 95+ points
"Red raspberries abound on the nose of the 2017 RWT Shiraz, which—as usual—is all Barossa fruit aged in French oak (70% new). It's full-bodied and velvety, with appealing notes of dried spices, beef and plenty of red fruit. There's a cedary veneer to this vintage, which looks as if it will need a couple of years to come together, then drink well for up to two decades." Joe Czerwinski, Wine Advocate – 95 points
Awards
Special Value Wine - Halliday Wine Companion ★
The story of rwt
Penfolds RWT Bin 798 Barossa Valley Shiraz, first made in 1997, was released after several years of red winemaking trials from which the wine takes its name. Since the 2014 vintage it has been allocated Bin number 798, based on the alpha-numeric telephone punch dial, to reflect its established status within the Penfolds wine portfolio.
The fruit is sourced exclusively from the best vineyards in the Barossa Valley, where ripening conditions particularly suit the Penfolds House Style. These include the Kalimna, Koonunga Hill, Moppa, Marananga and Ebenezer vineyards. The overall winemaking process is almost identical to Grange, however, unlike Grange, it is matured only in French oak. The maturation includes partial barrel fermentation for 12 to 15 months in 50-70% new French oak hogsheads (300 litres). These wines are built for the long haul, with the precision, concentration and balance to age for many years – the best vintages will last at least 30.
"RWT Bin 798 celebrates Barossa bloodlines and the graceful elegance of French oak. This is no longer a trial but a stand-alone Penfolds red that embodies regional provenance and now has its own track record" Andrew Baldwin, Winemaker
"An ode to the Barossa with all that beautiful power and depth." Nick Ryan, Penfolds Rewards of Patience tasting panel member
Peter Gago
The following text is taken from an article by Ken Gargett in Quill & Pad, https://quillandpad.com
Peter Gago has what many people in the wine world think is the best job on the planet. He is chief winemaker for Penfolds, based in South Australia and one of Australia’s oldest wine producers.
Max Schubert created Grange with the experimental first wine, the 1951, after he returned from Bordeaux and wanted to establish an Aussie First Growth. The story of Grange has been told many times, and as fascinating as it is I won’t rehash it again. Schubert ruled at Penfolds right through to the 1976 vintage, when he handed the reins to Don Ditter. Ditter made the wines right through to the 1986 vintage when John Duval stepped up. Duval was chief winemaker until the 2002 vintage, when he left to do his own thing, very successfully.
Since that time, Peter Gago has been the chief winemaker. It should be noted that although the role of chief winemaker at Penfolds will always be inextricably linked with Grange, there are a great many other wines in the portfolio for which this position assumes ultimate responsibility.
Alongside the winemaking, in which he is still heavily involved, a usual week in non-Covid times sees Gago flying around the world to tastings, dinners, events, festivals, and promotions. I suspect that only David Attenborough (outside of pilots and crew) has racked up more flying miles. I remember seeing him one day when he seemed even more pleased with the world than usual. Turns out he’d just run into his wife, Gail, now retired but a long-term and highly regarded member of the South Australian parliament, at the airport. Gago had not been aware that they would both be in the same country that week, let alone cross paths, such is his usual peripatetic lifestyle.
Gago has friends and admirers all around the globe, from the rich and famous to young, aspiring wine lovers, and will spend time talking to them all. I suspect that if he wanted to start dropping names, the din would reverberate for days, but you could not find a humbler man. Gago is a serious music buff and you’d be amazed at the number of rock stars who revere him, much in the way their fans might do for them (for instance, after crawling over broken glass to get a ticket to a Bruce Springsteen concert I saw Gago sitting in prime seats with Springsteen’s family, after which they went for dinner and knocked off a few bottles of Grange).
Gago is probably as close to a rock star himself in the world of wine, although perhaps more modest rather than flamboyant. And I have no idea if he can sing.
The thing that most amazes me with Gago is that every time you talk to him, he is bubbling with genuine enthusiasm, not just for Grange but for all his wines. He just loves what he is doing. One gets the feeling that every morning he wakes up and pinches himself to make sure it is real.
Among his many attributes, Gago has the gift of the gab like few others. Only once have I ever seen him lost for words and caught off guard. Many years ago, at the annual release – held in a very fancy location near the shores of Sydney Harbor; it is always a fancy location somewhere and also always includes great champagne to kick off the day as Gago is fanatical about the world’s best bubbles – the then current chairman or CEO of whichever corporate entity was then the owner of Penfolds attended the day. Forgive me for my failure to remember just where the corporate snakes and ladders left Penfolds that day and for failing to remember the relevant gentleman’s name. He had only been appointed as a temporary executive while the search for a more permanent one was ongoing, but unlike any of the CEOs before and after, this man had a genuine interest and came to a couple of tastings to learn.
Anyway, as we sipped our champagne on the lawns overlooking Sydney Harbor and chatted, our friend suddenly posed a question to Gago. He had been meaning to ask, he said, just how much Grange the company made. There were five or six writers in this little group and suddenly, every single one of us had pad and pen poised. The production of Grange is a national secret that is not to be disclosed under pain of death (general consensus puts it at, depending on the vintage, between 5,000 and 15,000 cases, with most releases in the mid range, but this is pure speculation).
Gago was at a loss. The boss of bosses had just asked him a direct question and Gago is far too polite not to answer but knew he couldn’t give that information out in public. He managed a fair bit of mumbling and generalizations and I think he suggested they meet later. Pads and pens all went back into bags, and we could not help grinning while Gago looked like he’d just swallowed a bad oyster.
Gago was born in England in 1957, but his family moved to Melbourne when he was only six years of age. Originally a math teacher (teaching is still a passion), he undertook a science degree at the University of Melbourne and then attended Roseworthy College, a famous Australian winemaking college, graduating as Dux (the highest ranking academic performance -ed), which will surprise no one.
In 1989 he joined Penfolds as a sparkling winemaker, working with Ed Carr, who has established a career in sparkling wine (now with Arras) as successful as Gago’s is with table wines. He moved to reds and quickly rose through the ranks until succeeding Duval in 2002. In the 73 years since Schubert was first appointed, Gago is only the fourth chief winemaker.
During his tenure, he has stacked up an extraordinary array of bling, as has Penfolds under his stewardship (Gago heads a team of eight winemakers for table wines and a couple more for fortifieds). He has several “Winemaker of the Year” awards from different entities and publications, both from Australia and abroad, but the accolades go well beyond that.
In 2017, in what is termed “the Queen’s Birthday Honors List,” he was awarded the highly prestigious Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for service to the wine industry. For non-Aussies, that is a big one! A year later, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of South Australia and named the Great Wine Capitals Ambassador for South Australia.
Very recently, Gago was awarded perhaps the most prestigious honor of all in the wine world: admission to the Decanter Hall of Fame (previously they honored the Decanter Man – or Woman – of the Year, but that changed). Decanter is a highly respected English wine magazine that established its hall of fame in 1984 with Serge Hochar from Château Musar in Lebanon the first recipient. There is only a single addition per year. Gago is the fourth Australian following Max Schubert in 1988, Len Evans in 1997, and Brian Croser in 2004. That two of the four chief winemakers from a single producer have made this list (Schubert and Gago) is unprecedented but shows just where Penfolds sits in the pantheon of wine producers around the globe.
And should you still remain unconvinced then take a moment to look at some of the names Gago has joined: Parker, Spurrier, Tchelistcheff, Robinson, Moueix, de Villaine, Antinori, Lichine, Gaja, Symington, Loosen, Guigal, Torres, Draper, Peynaud, Mondavi, and so many more. There is no question that the name Peter Gago sits very comfortably alongside them all.
What is most important is that across the board the Penfolds wines have never been better, and while it is a team effort, in the end we can thank Gago.
The winery
After the success of early sherries and fortified wines, founders Dr Christopher and Mary Penfold planted the vine cuttings they had carried on their voyage over to Australia. In 1844 the fledging vineyard was officially established as the Penfolds wine company at Magill Estate.
As the company grew, so too did Dr Penfold's medical reputation, leaving much of the running of the winery to Mary Penfold. Early forays into Clarets and Rieslings proved increasingly popular, and on Christopher's death in 1870, Mary assumed total responsibility for the winery. Mary's reign at the helm of Penfolds saw years of determination and endeavour.
By the time Mary Penfold retired in 1884 (ceding management to her daughter, Georgina) Penfolds was producing 1/3 of all South Australia's wine. She'd set an agenda that continues today, experimenting with new methods in wine production. By Mary's death in 1896, the Penfolds legacy was well on its way to fruition. By 1907, Penfolds had become South Australia's largest winery.
In 1948, history was made again as Max Schubert became the company's first Chief Winemaker. A loyal company man and true innovator, Schubert would propel Penfolds onto the global stage with his experimentation of long-lasting wines - the creation of Penfolds Grange in the 1950s.
In 1959 (while Schubert was perfecting his Grange experiment in secret), the tradition of ‘bin wines' began. The first, a Shiraz wine with the grapes of the company's own Barossa Valley vineyards was simply named after the storage area of the cellars where it is aged. And so Kalimna Bin 28 becomes the first official Penfolds Bin number wine.
In 1960, the Penfolds board instructed Max Schubert to officially re-start production on Grange. His determination and the quality of the aged wine had won them over.
Soon, the medals began flowing and Grange quickly became one of the most revered wines around the world. In 1988 Schubert was named Decanter Magazine's Man of the Year, and on the 50th anniversary of its birth, Penfolds Grange was given a heritage listing in South Australia.
Despite great success, Penfolds never rests on its laurels. In 2012 Penfolds released its most innovative project to date - 12 handcrafted ampoules of the rare 2004 Kalimna Block Cabernet Sauvignon.
Two years later, Penfolds celebrated the 170th anniversary – having just picked up a perfect score of 100 for the 2008 Grange in two of the world's most influential wine magazines. Today, Penfolds continues to hold dear the philosophies and legends – ‘1844 to evermore!'.
South Australia
South Australian is responsible for more than half the production of all Australian wine. It is home to more than 900 wineries across 18 wine regions. The regions are Adelaide Hills, Adelaide Plains, Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Coonawarra, Currency Creek, Eden Valley, Kangaroo Island, Langhorne Creek, McLaren Vale, Mount Benson, Mount Gambier, Padthaway, Riverland, Robe, Southern Fleurieu, Southern Flinders Ranges and Wrattonbully.
Many of the well-known names in the South Australian wine industry established their first vineyards in the late 1830s and early 1840s. The first vines in McLaren Vale were planted at Reynella in 1839 and Penfold's established Magill Estate on the outskirts of Adelaide in 1844.
South Australia has a vast diversity in geography and climate which allows the State to be able to produce a range of grape varieties - from cool climate Riesling in the Clare and Eden Vallies to the big, full bodied Shiraz wines of the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale. Two of Australia's best-known wines, Penfolds Grange and Henschke Hill of Grace, are produced here. There is much to discover in South Australia for the wine lover.