Penfolds launches its inaugural California collection in a Quantum leap for the brand

The timing is perfect ... with a trade war all but destroying wine sales to China, Penfolds is bringing the famed Napa Valley into the fold with a $950 Quantum leap.

Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago with the new Quantum release from its California Collection.

The timing is serendipitous for Penfolds. With a trade war all but destroying wine sales to China and Treasury Wine Estates’ renewed focus on the land of the free, the release of the marquee brand’s first “California collection” couldn’t have come at a better time.

But chief winemaker Peter Gago, the custodian of the Penfolds range, who also oversaw the brand’s first Champagne release in 2019, said it was no mere coincidence.

Rather it was “a long-time iron in the fire enterprise’’ dating back to an ambitious project to plant a selection of Magill Estate and Kalimna Heritage Selection vines on its then newly purchased Cammata Hills Estate, at Paso Robles in 1998-99, and arguably even back to a decade before that.

The wines released this week, led by the 2018 Quantum Bin 98 Cabernet Sauvignon, draw most heavily from the famed Napa Valley, about 400km to the north of Paso Robles, however some of those original cuttings are included in one of the wines in this inaugural release.

The Quantum, selling for $950 per bottle, and the Bin 149 at $220 per bottle, are each Napa Valley and South Australian blends, with the former coming in at 87 per cent cabernet sauvignon and 13 per cent shiraz.

Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago at the Magill Estate cellar door.

Penfolds has sourced grapes from vineyards which it owns or leases, some adjacent to the Valley’s most famed cult vineyards, and has selected grapes from other Napa regions including Oakville, Diamond Mountain District, Howell Mountain and Rutherford.

Harking back to Penfolds’ history dating back to 1844, Gago said the US and the “wine of the world” journey “is about the next 175 years”.

“We like to think we do what we do reasonably well, but you can’t just stay where you are’’ he said.

“We do have to move forward. This isn’t someone’s magic wand, Michael Clarke before he left or Tim Ford as CEO saying ‘what are you going to do now? How are you going to keep the light on?’ This project actually started one third of a century ago.’’

Gago says Penfolds sent its senior red wine maker to the US in the late 1980s, and ended up buying a half stake in the Geyser Peak winery as a “foot in the door’’ - a stake TWE no longer owns. Then in the late 90s the Magill Estate and Kalimna cuttings were planted in the newly-acquired Camatta Hills Estate at Paso Robles.

While experimental Camatta Hills vintages occurred in 2006 and 2007, the bottles were never commercially released by Penfolds. But grapes from those vineyards have now made their way into the $90 per bottle Bin 600, a 78 per cent cabernet sauvignon, 22 per cent shiraz.

Gago says TWE’s purchase of Diageo’s wine business for $US600 million in 2015 means that “We have so much to play with now, from a TWE perspective.

Gago describes the winemaking process as “Californian sun above, Californian soil below, but everything in between is Penfolds.’’

The ability to blend, as is done with Penfolds Grange, is distinctive of the Penfolds House style and allows them to be creative while not being restricted by geography, Gago says.

“Being global isn’t just about selling wine around the world, it is about working with both feet on the soil,’’ Gago said.

“This is not a simple, marketing branding section. this is a long time, iron in the fire enterprise.’’

Gago said there was already strong demand globally for the allocations. TWE is not releasing the numbers of each wine which will be released to the market, beyond hinting that the Quantum allocation was very small.

Gago said in a business sense the appeal was “very broad”, while for wine aficionados the release would be “provocative”.

On the timing of the project, Gago said: “We’re trying to do things bigger and better in America. How lucky are we?”