[SOLD-OUT] Penfolds St Henri 2017

WINE FRONT 94 POINTS!

"Made with grapes from Port Lincoln, the Eden Valley, McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley, not necessarily in that order. Matured as always in 50+ year old oak casks. 97% shiraz, 3% cabernet sauvignon.

It must be a) a pleasure to make and b) a difficult wine to make. You can’t hide anything behind the usual scaffolding or make it more ‘impressive’ with artifice.

It’s a jubey, floral, perfumed wine. You could call it pretty. It’s up and about, lively, fresh, sweet fruited in a boysenberry-plum jam-and-blueberry way. Drinking it is like letting the sun burst in through a window, its rays striking at the fruit bowl. If you can imagine Maggie Beer as a 21-year-old then you can imagine the joyous, bubbly, great-to-be-around character of this wine. St Henri used to come in a plain bottle and I always liked that; at some point they started stuffing it into heavy dark glass; it used to be fashionably unfashionable, plain and adorable; now it plods like the rest of ’em. Fortunately the wine doesn’t seem to mind. You twist the top and it beams straight at you, its eyes brimming with sweet spice. You know, I don’t think this wine has yet been told that it belongs to a publicly listed company. It feels free of care. Its future is bright because of course it is." - Campbell Mattinson, Wine Front

 

Country:

Australia

Region:

SA-(Other)

Variety:

Wine Red - Shiraz

Size:

750mL