There are four wines in this inaugural Penfolds California collection – two which are made purely from Californian fruit and two which are a blend of Australian and Californian wines.
It’s fair to say that Peter Gago has a pretty thick skin – thicker than a Shiraz berry at veraison – but what would you expect from an Aussie grafted onto Geordie rootstock? Here’s a man who’s only the fourth person to hold the post of chief winemaker for Penfolds since the first vine was planted by Dr Christopher Penfold in 1844, and when he took the post 19 years ago he said he wasn’t going to change anything.