Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) is making a series of bold moves as it looks to further the Penfolds global footprint with a number of innovative additions to the brand’s portfolio.
The additions include bringing Napa Valley grapes to the Penfolds winemaking team who will begin “crafting authentic Penfolds wine styles” from the 2018 California harvest onward. Penfolds Chief Winemaker, Peter Gago said this move highlights Penfolds skills at multi-regional sourcing and that it builds on the brand’s reputation for crafting wines that focus on quality rather than quantity benchmarks.
“Our Penfolds House Style certainly allows and embraces the freedom to explore premium viticultural regions across the world. We are striving to add outstanding Californian-sourced wines to our offering by fiscal 2022,” Gago said.
In addition to the Napa wines, Penfolds is also expanding its range with ‘Penfolds Special Bottlings’; initially this special range will include:
- The first release of Penfolds Special Bottlings is Lot. 1990 – a Pot Distilled 28 year old Single Batch Brandy, available now;
- The second release, Lot. 518 is a Spirited Wine – a premium fortified Barossa Shiraz (94 per cent) enlivened with Baijiu; scheduled for release in September 2018;
- The third release is a Champagne, expected to be released in calendar year 2019 – in time for the celebration of Penfolds 175th anniversary year.
Gago added: “The Penfolds winemaking team is delighted to engage in a profound expansion of our core range, while preserving Penfolds DNA and at the same time, building upon the creativity, ingenuity and boldness of our winemaking ancestry. This will broaden our base and help future-proof Penfolds.”
TWE’s Chief Executive Officer, Michael Clarke, said: “[This] news on Penfolds signifies another important step on Treasury Wine Estates’ journey to invest in and build true trust marks; expanding the Penfolds stable to include brandy, spirited wine and multi-country sourcing.
Innovation of this nature plays a critical role in driving long term, sustainable growth for the company as we broaden brand appeal and offerings to consumers around the world.
“Multi-region and multi-country sourcing brings excitement and energy into established brands and at the same time, strengthens TWE’s ability to deliver consistent, quality wine year on year; regardless of vintage variation. What we have announced for Penfolds is just the start of a much larger agenda we have to deliver continued growth.”