Winemaker Notes
Blend: 96% Shiraz, 4% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This 2013 Shiraz St Henri follows in the blockbuster footsteps of the 2010 and 2012. The blend is 96% Shiraz with 4% Cabernet Sauvignon and the fruit sources are far and wide, including a real mix of terroirs: McLaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Padthaway and Port Lincoln. It spent 12 months in 50+-year-old casks. Deep garnet-purple colored, the youthfully reticent nose is complex, offering loam, aged meat, licorice, tar, scorched earth, fenugreek and cloves over a cherry cordial, blueberry pie and dried mulberries core. The medium to full-bodied palate reveals lovely, understated elegance and depth with a firm backbone of ripe, grainy tannins and many fruit and spice layers emerging on the finish. This is one for the long-long haul and, at a fraction of the price of Grange, should be where the smart money goes for stocking the cellar.
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James Suckling
This is a very tidy and neatly framed edition of St. Henri, offering a sense of elegance married with deep-set concentration and rich fruit flavors. Redder fruits do run through to blackberries and various shades of cherries, and there's also a savory, dark and brooding edge. The palate has super-deep, rich and balanced style to it, making this one of the most complete wines in the collection. A plethora of dark berries, dark plums and ginger biscuits come to the fore as this closes off. What a delicious long, deep and slate-like finish. Balanced enough to broach now, but this will hit a magic drinking window from 2025 through to 2035 — or perhaps even further afield. 96% shiraz and just 4% cabernet sourced from McLaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Padthaway and Port Lincoln.
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Wine Spectator
Offers a mouthful of bright and juicy black cherry and raspberry flavors that are generous and supple, articulated by touches of clove, matcha green tea and bergamot. Velvety tannins gain traction on the finish. Drink now through 2030.
Since 1844, Penfolds has been grounded in experimentation, curiosity and uncompromising quality. Their success has been driven by a lineage of visionary winemakers. It began with Dr. Christopher and Mary Penfold, the pioneers who dreamed big, inventing tonics, brandies, and fortified wines made from grapes and Australian sunshine. It continued with celebrated winemaking legends including Max Schubert, who pushed the development to extraordinary, bold new heights. It is this pioneering spirit and curiosity that still rings true after nearly two centuries, it is what has helped Penfolds become one of the most celebrated winemakers in the world today.
Though Syrah originated in the Rhône Valley of France, Australia is home to the oldest Syrah (called Shiraz here) vines on the planet. Found in Australia’s Barossa Valley, where phylloxera has never threated viticulture, these ancient vines are between 140 to 175 years old!
Having brought fame and merit to the country’s wine scene since the early 1950s, namely via the debut of Penfolds Grange, today Syrah (Shiraz) claims rank as the most widely planted grape in Australia. In fact, the amount of land dedicated to Shiraz in Australia is now almost equivalent to what it is in France. Australian Shiraz has its own personality with flavors and aromas of intense blackberry, fruitcake, menthol, tobacco leaf and umami. Conveniently one can find great Australian Shiraz at a variety of price points but the very best will be dense, gloriously complex and capable of long aging.