One of the most unique alliances in modern winemaking, the Penfolds Grange La Chapelle 2021 offers a true taste of the shared history between Old World Syrah and New World Shiraz. Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago tells Stephenie Gee all about it
In the world of fine wine – where legacy is guarded more fiercely than innovation – collaborations that break the mould don’t often happen. But occasionally, they do. And the Penfolds Grange La Chapelle 2021 is one of them. A joint venture between Australian winemaker Penfolds and Domaine de la Chapelle in France’s Rhône Valley, this pioneering blend – the first in what the winemakers hope will become an annual release – intertwines the rich heritage of French wine tradition with the innovative spirit of Australian craft into a single, harmonious expression, rooted in mutual admiration, technicality and a shared legacy.
As with many origin stories, this one began among friends. For decades, Peter Gago, chief winemaker at Penfolds, and Caroline Frey of La Chapelle, have thought of, talked about and poured their wines together, stopping short of releasing a collaborative bottling – until now. “The idea was born several years ago from a longstanding friendship and from curiosity. And then the idea became, ‘Oh, let’s try a little bit of this and a little bit of that.’ And we were doing this virtually at this point. Covid, right at the very start, came in, then everything else – fate, if you like, took over. One particular blend stood out from all of the things we did and that happened to be this. So the decision was made for us. We think we make them, but they’re made. And what was in the glass became what happened,” Gago recalls. “It’s a lovely thing – curiosity, friendship. There are many people on planet Earth, billions. So why does this happen? Well, it doesn’t happen by accident. So we can’t stress the human factor in all of this. And like artists blend colours, we blend wines, and the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere, it came together.”
Composed of equal parts Syrah from La Chapelle, grown on the steep slopes of France’s Hill of Hermitage, and Shiraz from select Grange vineyards across South Australia, including Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Clare Valley, the wine unites the two greatest expressions of the grape, grown on opposite sides of the world. “If you’d asked anyone a few years ago if this would be possible, most people would say we’ve got to be joking,” Gago continues. “But we made it possible. It was very unexpected, but it’s interesting to explore pushing the boundaries, which is what we did with the collaboration, and we achieved something really groundbreaking. No one has ever blended two such legendary cuvées, which is a massive risk. La Chapelle is their flagship. Grange is our flagship. And to put flagship together with flagship, I think that’s the greatest indicator of the authenticity, not the confidence, but just when things work, they work. And this worked.”
But this collaboration wasn’t without its obstacles. For one, six months separate their harvests. And with French regulations prohibiting blending across countries, the Syrah completed both primary and malolactic fermentation in Hermitage before being air-freighted to Australia in temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks for final blending and maturation under Gago’s watch.
“It’s illegal to bottle a blend as such in France because of law and regulations. So the wine had to be bottled and therefore matured as a blend in Australia. But how do you get it from the Rhone Valley to South Australia, over 10,000 miles? And how do you do it without compromising quality? That was the major challenge,” he tells me. “So we used stainless steel pallet tankers and put them on the plane. Why didn’t we just ship the wine across, which is the way it’s always been done? Because goodness knows what quality would have been compromised. The main issue with shipping is that you send it from a winery and it might sit at the port for a while. The Rhône Valley in the middle of summer is very hot. South Australia in the middle of summer is very hot. And also, it’s not summer to summer. It’s summer at one end and winter at the other, or vice versa, meaning you have an even greater extreme of temperature. So by getting it onto an airplane and doing it within a day or two, you eliminate that risk. If we were making millions and millions and millions of litres, obviously this wouldn’t be possible. But Grange La Chapelle 2021 is a very rare fine wine.”
The result is something entirely its own. While it nods respectfully to its legendary parents, Grange La Chapelle 2021 isn’t content to live in their shadows. Violet in the glass, it offers a bouquet of black cherry, pomegranate and eucalyptus with a pleasant touch of forest floor. After an opening burst of cranberry, slightly grippy tannins and well-balanced acidity support flavours of purple plum, blackberry, milk chocolate, mint and black pepper, with a soft hint of baking spices that lingers into the persistent finish.
“La Chapelle is tried and proven, and Grange, for now, has well over 70 vintages. Our main fear was originally that they’re two different styles. And how do you get harmony between square hole, round peg, that sort of thing. And we were not counting on it happening. It was just one of the trials and the two just dovetailed. And I think the inevitability of the end result surprised us all. In wine making, a lot of it is trialling – ‘Does this work? No, that doesn’t work.’ But somehow this did. I’m not sure of the science behind it, but I know in the end it worked.”
You won’t find it on a store shelf anywhere. This tightly limited bottling is being sold directly to customers – at AU$3,500 (HK$18,000) apiece. After all, this isn’t just a wine. It’s the reunion of a varietal. A remix. And, perhaps, the beginning of a new tradition that celebrates what happens when the rules are bent by the right hands.
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