2019 Penfolds, St Henri Shiraz, Australia

2019 Penfolds, St Henri Shiraz, Australia

Product: 20198007847
Prices start from £68.50 per bottle (75cl). Buying options
2019 Penfolds, St Henri Shiraz, Australia

Buying options

Available for delivery or collection. Pricing includes duty and VAT.

Description

Rare for quality Australian reds, St Henriz Shiraz is aged only in large, old oak. The absence of new oak allows the fruit to speak for itself. With beautifully pure fruit on the nose, this is deep, dark and delicious. The fabulous fruit continues onto the palate, pure, black and spicy. This is kept in balance by crisp acidity and big, grippy tannins that will ensure a long life here. The finish is long, fine and wonderfully concentrated, with the spicy black and blue fruit lasting all the way to the end. For me, this is the best wine in the Penfolds range.

Drink 2024 - 2040

Chris Pollington, Senior Account Manager, Berry Bros. & Rudd

wine at a glance

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Critics reviews

Josh Raynolds, Vinous95/100

Opaque ruby. An expansive, complex bouquet evokes ripe dark fruits, espresso, candied violet, vanilla and sandalwood, and an exotic spice nuance emerges slowly. Conveys a suave blend of depth and energy to sweet blueberry, kirsch and fruitcake flavors, supported by a core of juicy acidity. Shows outstanding clarity and spicy lift on the youthfully tannic finish, which strongly echoes the blue fruit and floral notes.

Drink 2029 - 2040

Josh Raynolds, Vinous.com (September 2022)

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Jancis Robinson MW17.5+/20

5% McLaren Vale, 21% Barossa, 20% Padthaway, 19% Wrattonbully and the rest Port Lincoln, which the official Penfolds literature calls ‘the Peninsulas’. 12 months in large, seasoned oak vats.

 

Drink 2024 - 2050

Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (July 2022)

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Wine Advocate96+/100

The St Henri Shiraz is often one of my favorite reds in the Penfolds Collection, due to the ability of the fruit to shine through the fine sheath of oak that encases it. At this stage, and I know you will hear this often, the wine still represents good value. The 2019 St Henri Shiraz is elegantly structured, with the 2019 vintage showing the warmth and intensity without overstepping balance or line. Texturally, this will only increase in its silky shape, which comes with the gentle suggestion to decant this if you insist on drinking it within five years from harvest (i.e., anytime from now to 2024). This 2019 is shaped by abundant red and purple fruit (and a splash of blue), charry spice and fine tannins. Gorgeous.

 

Drink 2022 - 2042

Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate (July 2022)

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James Suckling97/100

Immediately spicy and complex, this has a rich blackberry and dark-plum nose, together with dark-chocolate and tarry, earthy elements. The palate has a very rich, fleshy feel with such ripe dark-plum, dark-chocolate, blackberry and mulberry flavors on offer. Generous, yet balanced. A South Australian blend of McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley, Padthaway, Wrattonbully and The Peninsulas.

Drink or hold. Screw cap.

James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (June 2022)

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Decanter96/100

So much comfort comes from each sip of this graceful, understated Shiraz, boasting a meld of all the essential elements: bright, crunchy fruit freshness and satisfying savoury grip, all bound together in an intriguing textural tussle. There’s much to contemplate, with olive, plum, mulberry, cocoa and cranberry all rolling and pitching on a king tide in the mid-palate. Such a luxurious sum of the parts makes you want to dive in for more.

Drink 2022 - 2045

David Sly, Decanter.com (June 2022)

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Vinous94+/100

The 2019 St Henri is a high-powered and historic South Australian Shiraz. It brings together the richness of the 2019 vintage with the understated St Henri style to provide a stunning proposition. Raw power is on display with punchy aromas of violets, blackberries and ink with mocha oak sitting gently in the background. The palate follows suit with a muscular feel and chewy tannins underpinning a rich bed of broody black fruits which are sustained through to a long, dense finish. This iron fist in a velvet glove is immensely impressive and will, without doubt, age beautifully.

Drink 2030 - 2048

Angus Hughson, Vinous.com (July 2022)

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The Real Review97/100

Very deep, dark and concentrated colour; the bouquet very warm and ripe: baked fruits, ironstone, terracotta, baked earth, also graphite, the palate very full-bodied, dense and powerful, a big wine for St Henri, coating the mouth with tannins and concentrated flavour. Very long finish.

Drink 2023 - 2044

Huon Hooke, TheRealReview.com (June 2022)

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About this WINE

Penfolds

Penfolds

Penfolds enjoys an iconic status that few New World producers have achieved. Established in 1844 at the Magill Estate near Adelaide, it laid the foundation for fine wine production in Australia.

The winemaking team is led by the masterful Peter Gago; it has the herculean task of blending the best wines from a multitude of different plots, vineyards and regions to create a consistent and outstanding range of wines. Its flagship wine, Grange, is firmly established as one of the finest red wines in the world.

Under Gago’s stewardship, the Penfolds range has evolved over time. Winemaking has moved away from New World heat and the sort of larger-than-life style that can mask individuality; the contemporary wines instead favour fine balance and typicity for the region or grape.

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Barossa Valley

Barossa Valley

Barossa Valley is the South Australia's wine industry's birthplace. Currently into its fifth generation, it dates back to 1839 when George Fife Angas’ South Australian Company purchased 28,000 acres at a £1 per acre and sold them onto landed gentry, mostly German Lutherans. The first vines were planted in 1843 in Bethany, and by the 1870s – with Europe ravaged by war and Phylloxera - Gladstone’s British government complemented its colonies with preferential duties.

Fortified wines, strong enough to survive the 20,000km journey, flooded the British market. Churchill followed, between the Wars, re-affirming Australia’s position as a leading supplier of ‘Empire wines’. After the Second World War, mass European immigration saw a move to lighter wines, as confirmed by Grange Hermitage’s creation during the 1950s. Stainless-steel vats and refrigeration improved the quality of the dry table wines on offer, with table wine consumption exceeding fortified for the first time in 1970.

Averaging 200 to 400 metres’ altitude, the region covers 6,500 hectares of mainly terra rossa loam over limestone, as well as some warmer, sandier sites – the Cambrian limestone being far more visible along the eastern boundary (the Barossa Ranges) with Eden Valley. Following a diagonal shape, Lyndoch at the southern end nearest Gulf St Vincent is the region’s coolest spot, benefiting from sea fogs, while Nuriootpa (further north) is warmer; hot northerlies can be offset by sea breezes. The region is also home to the country’s largest concentration of 100-year-old-vine ShirazGrenache and Mourvedre.

Barossa Valley Shiraz is one of the country’s most identifiable and famous red wine styles, produced to a high quality by the likes of Rockford, Elderton, Torbreck and Dean Hewitson. Grenache and Mourvèdre are two of the region’s hidden gems, often blended with Shiraz, yet occasionally released as single vineyard styles such as Hewitson’s ‘Old Garden’, whose vines date back to 1853. Cabernet Sauvignon is a less highly-regarded cultivar.

Wines are traditionally vinified in open concrete fermenters before being cleaned up and finished in American and French oak barrels or ‘puncheons’ of approximately 600 litres. Barossa Shiraz should be rich, spicy and suave, with hints of leather and pepper.

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Syrah/Shiraz

Syrah/Shiraz

A noble black grape variety grown particularly in the Northern Rhône where it produces the great red wines of Hermitage, Cote Rôtie and Cornas, and in Australia where it produces wines of startling depth and intensity. Reasonably low yields are a crucial factor for quality as is picking at optimum ripeness. Its heartland, Hermitage and Côte Rôtie, consists of 270 hectares of steeply terraced vineyards producing wines that brim with pepper, spices, tar and black treacle when young. After 5-10 years they become smooth and velvety with pronounced fruit characteristics of damsons, raspberries, blackcurrants and loganberries.

It is now grown extensively in the Southern Rhône where it is blended with Grenache and Mourvèdre to produce the great red wines of Châteauneuf du Pape and Gigondas amongst others. Its spiritual home in Australia is the Barossa Valley, where there are plantings dating as far back as 1860. Australian Shiraz tends to be sweeter than its Northern Rhône counterpart and the best examples are redolent of new leather, dark chocolate, liquorice, and prunes and display a blackcurrant lusciousness.

South African producers such as Eben Sadie are now producing world- class Shiraz wines that represent astonishing value for money.

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