Do you watch Masterchef & go gaga over the food? Then you must have heard of the Barossa Valley, which is home to not just wonderful produce but to some spectacular wineries too…. And one of the most prominent of these is Penfolds.
Their wines are extraordinary and I was awestruck about how they came about! So here’s a glimpse of Penfolds’ background and history….
Penfolds is one of Australia’s oldest wineries & by 1907 it became South Australia’s largest.
Penfolds’ journey began way way back in 1844 when their fortified wines were made only for the founder, Dr. Christopher Penfolds’ patients, as he strongly believed in the medicinal benefits of wine. As demand for the wines increased, so did Dr. Penfold’s medical reputation, after which the running of the winery was left to Mary Penfold, his wife.
A lot of growth and innovation in the winery also happened with Max Schubert.
Max Schubert joined as a messenger boy; he grew to become the 1st Chief Winemaker of Penfolds. The very famous ‘Grange’ series was his baby, which wouldn’t be here today, if it wasn’t for his perseverance. Max was also the man behind Penfolds’ re-corking clinics. If your Penfolds wine is 15 years or older, they offer a free service of re-corking the wine.
In the 1960s, Penfolds started the tradition of the now famous ‘bin wines’, the name of which stems from ‘batch identification numbers’ which simply means the storage place of the wine in the cellar before being sold. Some bin wines became famous & today the nostalgia remains as a way of paying homage to the past.
The history of this iconic company is fascinating, & the wines even more so. As Penfolds rightly says: from “1844 to Evermore!”