Winemaker Notes
Deep plum red. Savory notes first detected, yet quickly courted by generous cherry liqueur/chocolate aromas. Scents of dried beef sit alongside a textbook garrigue deconstruction – dried herb/oregano/thyme/lavender. Perplexingly, an exotic emission continues – best guess – vegetable shortening, cranberry and activated walnut! Shiraz unplugged… oak or artefact not part of this wine's demeanor. Smells like? St Henri. A masterclass of texture: plush, glossy, seamless – abetted by silky, polished tannins. One taster quipped: "millennial tannins"! Black olive; coffee and mocha flavors abound, as do the generous shiraz fruits sourced from the northern viticultural reaches of South Australia. Medium-bodied, with a great core and lovely framework – yet what is sipped fills the mouth so effortlessly. A succulence is immediately noted – a fruited pomegranate/cranberry/quince paste-induced acidity, balanced with fruit sweetness. Not trying too hard. St Henri rarely does.
Blend: 97% Shiraz, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Australian Wine Companion
The cool and late vintage kissed the wine on both cheeks, making the classic maturation in 50yo vats doubly welcome. A glimpse of the future is the use of fruit from Port Lincoln joining the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, and Eden Valley in the blend. This has none of the hardness that sometimes gives an edge to St Henri, purity stepping in to its sculpted palate. Includes 3% cabernet sauvignon.
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Wine Enthusiast
The latest bottling of St. Henri, from a cool vintage, is a classic. Inky-hued, it's a deep well of flavor: plush blackberries, roasted vegtables, coffee beans, dark chocolate and a sanguine nuance. The palate is rich and mouthfilling but linear, with polished, spicy oak and fine, powerful tannins. It's a big wine that needs a major hit of protein if drinking now, but it will age beautifully for many decades to come. Drink through 2045.
Cellar Selection -
James Suckling
This has a very impressive, intense nose with a cool and spicy edge, as well as aromas of red flowers and fresh raspberries, set amid some wild-herb tones. The palate has very expressive raspberry and cranberry flavors, delivered among fine, crunchy and lithe, juicy tannins. The palate has a deep, red-plum core that’s quite tautly contained and wrapped up neatly for some time to come. Try this from 2025. Screw cap.
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Vinous
Saturated violet. Spice-accented cherry, cassis and licorice aromas show fine detail and a smoky mineral topnote emerges as the wine opens up. Vibrant blackberry and bitter cherry flavors are supported by a core of zesty acidity and become sweeter and deeper on the back half. Smoothly melds depth and vivacity and finishes juicy and extremely long, with mounting tannins and lingering dark fruit and licorice qualities.
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Wine & Spirits
By aging some of his top shiraz in large, old wooden vats, Peter Gago follows a tradition established by John Davoren in the 1950s, creating one of the most elegant and long-lived red wines of Australia. The cool, late 2017 vintage played into the St. Henri style, producing a clean, fragrant wine with scents of roses and fresh strawberries, the flavors bound in a tension between racy and generous, luscious and restrained. Berkshire chef Amy Loveless described it as “an inviting wine. There’s nothing high-octane about it. The fruit is calm.” Which is another way of describing how different the style is from the powerful, sometimes explosive force of Penfolds’ Grange. St. Henri ignores all the recent tangents of Aussie shiraz: It’s not big, it’s not lean, it’s neither sweet nor severe. There’s something copacetic about it; the wine doesn’t call attention to itself, and yet it is a delicious shiraz structured to age for decades.
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Wine Spectator
Impressive for the purity of the blueberry, cherry and huckleberry flavors, with touches of Dutch cocoa, espresso and toasted herb. Wonderful, dense, toothsome tannins add to the sense of concentration, displaying balance on the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The St Henri point of difference is that it's aged in old, large wooden vats. Sourced from throughout South Australia, the 2017 St Henri Shiraz reveals no oak in its rather raw, unrefined notes of bloody beef, mixed berries, black olives and road tar. It's full-bodied and still tannic at this stage, with a bit of coarseness on the finish that hopefully time will soften. While not the best vintage for St Henri, it's a commendable effort that should age well.
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.