2020 Penfolds, St Henri Shiraz, Australia

From vineyards in McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley and Clare Valley. South Australia experienced a second consecutive year of winter drought, followed by a cool and dry spring delaying flowering and fruit set. Root-zone moisture levels were well below average making irrigation vital. The beginning of summer was marked by a state-wide heatwave. Bunch weights and berry numbers were low and yields significantly below average across the three regions. Aged for 12 months in large, seasoned oak vats. TA 6.6 g/l, pH 3.62.

Blackish purple. Lifted, somehow glossy fruit. Salty start and very polished, welcoming ripe fruit until a slightly dry-season chewy finish. Not as hot on the end as some wines in this collection. But I would wait a little while for more complexity to form.

Drink 2025 - 2040

Routinely my favorite red cuvée in the Penfolds Collection matured in large-format seasoned French oak), there is always a freshness and suppleness to the fruit that is most elegant in the glass. Here, the 2020 St Henri Shiraz shows the warm and low-yielding season from whence it came in the splay of roasted beetroot, red fruits and meats on the mid-palate. A chunky, meaty iteration of this wine, the tannins are grippy and full in the mouth. You get aniseed and clove through the finish. 14.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

Drink now to 2040

Dense, dank and brooding. A very warm vintage, serving an incantation of licorice strap, clove, camphor, dried nori and a spicy backdrop to a flood of dark, saturated fruits. Often the cuvee that I prefer most, however the tannins in this instance are more four-square, burlier, thick grape skin-gritty and less resolved than usual. A bit drying. The oak, classy and firm, compressing and directing.

Best after 2028

The 2020 Shiraz St Henri lives up to its traditional claret billing, reserved, subtle and built to last. Excellent color to begin before delivering a refined mix of coca, blackberry and black olive tapenade with a subtle dusting of old spice. It's mid-weight, firm and stylish, with more gravel and graphite flavors starting to emerge. The vintages' firm tannins are well-matched and draw out a lengthy finish. You can bank off this drinking well for a couple of decades.

Drink 2028 - 2042

Always the most unique, savoury and graceful red in the Penfolds stable, beloved for the fact it does not see any new oak just 12 months in large, seasoned vats) and thereby emphasises the unadulterated purity of South Australian Shiraz. And the dry, low-yielding 2020 vintage has delivered an already approachable St Henri whose score may well improve with further maturation in the meantime I wait with rapt anticipation for the 2021…). 

More McLaren Vale fruit joins the Barossa and Clare parcels this vintage thanks to late summer rain, and the result is a textured, mineral, fresh-fruited profile that conjures up rhubarb, cherries and wild strawberries along with seaweed, curry spices and polished leather enveloped in dusty, textured tannins.

Drink 2023 - 2050