South Australia's Penfolds has partnered with French producer La Chapelle to release a new wine, the 2021 Grange La Chapelle.
Announced at a black-tie event in Paris on Sunday night, the wine is a 50/50 blend of Grange (shiraz from the Barossa, Clare and McLaren Vale) and La Chapelle Syrah from the Hill of Hermitage in the northern Rhône Valley, and comes with a cool $3500 (€2600) price tag.
Intended as an annual release (vintage conditions permitting, although the 2022 is already in bottle and the 2023 in barrel), Grange La Chapelle is the result of a long-standing friendship between Penfolds’ chief winemaker Peter Gago and Caroline Frey, chief winemaker and vigneron at La Chapelle, who wanted to explore and showcase the potential of this grape variety. The wine combines the attributes of French syrah and Australian shiraz and is described as “bold yet elegant, structured yet expressive”.
Although Penfolds has been strengthening its winemaking connections with France in recent years, through its partnership with Champagne house Thiénot and its French Release, this is the first time in history the Australian producer has allowed its flagship to be blended with another winemaker’s product.
It's not, however, the first time these two iconic producers have been celebrated alongside each other. Both wines appeared in a major tasting organised by The Institute of Masters of Wine decades ago, and again in 1987, at a Hermitage Luncheon at Rakel Restaurant in New York, which featured a young Thomas Keller on the pans and Gérard Jaboulet and Max Schubert pouring 1971 Penfolds Grange and 1978 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle.
Unsurprisingly, quantities of 2021 Penfolds La Chapelle are tiny, and only a handful of merchants globally have been invited to sell the wine to their private customers. An extremely limited number of bottles will be available to purchase from Penfolds directly.
Visit grangexlachapelle.com for more information.
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