The story of Penfolds is a fascinating microcosm of the story of European settlement in Australia and the country’s two hundred year development to its position today in the world community.

Australia’s wine industry now stands proud in the forum of international wine as one of the greatest quality and value producers in the world, and Penfolds is renowned as Australia’s Most Famous Wine. From the adventurous beginnings of Christopher Rawson Penfold leaving England to settle in a far-off land, the Penfolds story journeys to the present day, leaving a 150 year legacy of excellence and outstanding achievement that has defined the company and - indeed - the entire story of Australian wine.

Penfolds was founded by a young English doctor who migrated to one of his country’s most distant colonies a century and a half ago. Dr Christopher Rawson Penfold was born in 1811, the youngest of 11 children. He studied medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, graduating in 1838.

Like many doctors before and since, DR Penfold had a firm belief in the medicinal value of wine. Before he left Britain he had obtained vine cuttings from the south of France and these were planted around the site of the modest stone cottage he built with his wife, Mary, at Magill on the outskirts of Adelaide in 1845. The couple called this house The Grange, after Mary’s home in England. DR Penfold built up his medical practice and made fortified wines - port and sherry - for his patients. As the demand for their wine grew, the Penfolds expanded the vineyards and increased production.

and Thomas Hyland.

Georgina and Thomas had two sons and two daughters, all of whom became involved in the company. The two sons, Frank Astor Hyland (born 1873) and (Herbert) Leslie Hyland (1878), played major roles, and ran the company until World War ll. This generation also changed the family’s name to Penfold Hyland. During this time, Penfolds’ dominance of the Australian wine market reached a peak, with reports indicating that approximately one out of every two bottles of wine sold in Australia in the 1920’s had the Penfolds name upon it.

Changing Tastes

Up until the Second World War, the company mainly produced fortified wines and brandy, with only a small amount of table wine. Jeffrey Penfold Hyland, however, decided to change Penfolds’ direction, increasing the company’s production of table wine, which at the end of the war still accounted for only 3 per cent of Penfolds’ total production. In 1950, therefore, Jeffrey convinced the company to focus more on table wine, reflecting the emerging shift of consumer tastes following the War. The task of effecting this change was given to the winemaker, Max Schubert, who had joined the company as a teenage messenger boy in the early 1930’s.

A Continuing Tradition of Excellence

Penfolds became a public company in 1962, with the family finally relinquishing control to Tooth and Co. in 1976. The family’s commitment to excellence however has remained at the foundation of the Penfolds’ philosophy, with an ongoing string of new and exciting projects continuing to place Penfolds at the helm of Australian fine wine development. In the 1990’s the White Wine Project yielded Yattarna Chardonnay as a shining demonstration of Australia’s capacity to produce world class white wines as well as reds. Also towards the end of that decade the ‘rising star’ RWT evolved as a new style for Barossa Valley Shiraz, using French instead of American oak to fashion a remarkable wine of considerable finesse and style. The development of the Thomas Hyland wines in the new millennium continues the Penfolds tradition of constantly striving for new wines to meet the emerging tastes of the modern consumer.

Throughout all these changes, Penfolds’ continued success has been built from years of experience. Penfold’s philosophy of matching their considerable vineyard resources to an array of wine styles and having the patience to then allow those wines appropriate cellar and bottle maturation prior to release, has secured the company’s reputation as Australia’s leading exponent of the utmost quality across a comprehensive portfolio of wines to suit every taste and occasion.

From humble beginnings in the 1950s, Grange has maintained its place as Australia's most prestigious red wine over four decades. Today, it is a wine of international renown, with each vintage eagerly awaited by collectors both in Australia and overseas.

Penfolds Grange is a wine of extraordinary dimension and power. Richly textured, intensely concentrated and packed with fruit sweetness, these wines, regardless of vintage, require medium to long-term cellaring. They develop into immensely complex, beguiling wines that seduce the senses.

An Australian icon, Grange represents a tradition in winemaking that is totally uncompromising. Grange has bypassed the fads and trends of modern winemaking in the sense that it has maintained an integrity of style and remained true to its origins in the mind of Max Schubert. Penfolds Grange is the quality standard against which all other Australian red wines are judged. To share a mature Grange, 15 to 20 years old, in fine condition, is one of the great wine experiences.

Wine Spectator magazine named the 1990 vintage Grange 'The Best Red Wine in the World'. This accolade has sent the price of both the '90 and subsequent vintage releases soaring at auction.

Penfolds has been producing remarkable wines for almost 150 years and indisputably lead the development of Australian fine wine in the modern era. The introduction of Penfolds Grange Hermitage in 1951 forever changed the landscape of Australian fine wine, since then a series of standout wines - both red and white - have been released under the Penfolds masthead.

Red Wine

Grange
Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon
RWT Barossa Valley Shiraz
Magill Estate Shiraz
St Henri Shiraz
Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz
Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon
Bin 138 Old Vine Red
Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz
Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz
Thomas Hyland Shiraz (US only)
Organic Cabernet Merlot (UK only)
Bin 2 Shiraz Mourvedre
Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet
Koonunga Hill Cabernet Merlot
Rawson's Retreat Merlot
Rawson's Retreat Cabernet Sauvignon
Rawson's Retreat Shiraz Cabernet