More than 50 gold medals. Over 30 100-point critic awards. Several wine of the year accolades.
Penfolds’ Grange is one of the world’s most celebrated – and collected – wines. Yet, the man in charge refuses to brag about it.
“There’s no such thing as a ‘best of’ anything,” Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago tells me, between sips of a flat white at Goodwood’s members’ clubhouse, The Kennels. “We don’t say we’re the best, because that’s where arrogance kicks in. You’re only as good as your last mistake – and Grange is only as good as its last review.”
Gago is in the UK to celebrate 75th anniversary for Penfolds’ Grange. While now one of the most collectible – and expensive – reds in the world, the first iteration launched back in 1951. It was a result of an experiment by Penfolds’ then-headwine maker Max Schubert, who had big ambitions to create an Australian version that would rival the finest Bordeaux.
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Initially, his experiment failed. “I’m fairly sure [Schubert] got excited and poured it too soon, just like I do sometimes,” says Gago. Top executives advised him to abandon ship, but the winemaker ignored instruction and carried on with his project in secret. He worked for “three years off the books, underground, and under the threat of instant dismissal,” Gago says. “The two biggest traits of a great winemaker are tenacity and resilience. [He] had both.”
Luckily, it paid off. When Grange was reintroduced for a second tasting, it was met with enthusiasm, and over the course of its 75 years, the accolades have mounted. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, the wine came out top in international blind tastings and received several perfect critic scores. On launch, a 1971 hovered around the $10-mark for a bottle; the same vintage can now command up to $1,500 at auction (a bottle of the ’51 has sold for $50,000).
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One moment was especially pivotal. In 1995, Wine Spectator named the 1990 vintage as the best red wine in the world. “That award took it into a different realm,” says Gago. “In an Australian context, it’s done a huge favor for so many wineries because it opens doors. People can look at a label and say ‘oh, that’s where Grange is from.’”
Predominantly Shiraz with a small percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon, Grange blends premium grapes from a combination of vineyards across Australia including Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, and Clare Valley. The wine is fermented under strict heat controls and aged in new American oak. Controversially, acidity is added to prevent spoiling.
Gago recalls facing criticism over the practice early in his career. “When I was very junior I was giving a presentation, and this French bloke stood up and he literally spat out, ‘in Australia, I’ve heard you’re allowed to add acid to your wine,’” Gago says. “I replied, ‘yes, we do ph correct microbiologically. Works perfectly to protect the wine’”. Reflecting on the exchange, he says: “People can knock anything, but this [curiosity] is the difference between arrogance and confidence.”
Schubert’s initial experiment was to test whether an Australian wine was capable of aging for up to 20 years, but Penfolds’ scientific breakthroughs mean its best vintages can keep for up to five decades.
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Since its launch, Grange has passed through the hands of just four custodians. Gago, who is English-born but with an accent that firmly tells of a life lived in Australia, has held his role for 22 years. An ex-high school chemistry and maths teacher, later retraining in winemaking, he initially joined Penfolds’ sparkling division in 1989, before stepping into the chief winemaker role in 2002.
But, he is quick to deflect any suggestion that Grange is the work of one person. “So who makes Grange?” he muses. “Well, the whole team does. And not just the winemaking team, but also the viticulturalists and their vineyard managers. It’’s a lovely symphony. There’s a conductor at the front, but you don’t get anything without the big orchestral drums.”
A large portion of his role as custodian is naturally dedicated to safeguarding reputation for the future. “You’re only a new car for six months,” he says. “There will be a new kind on the block – but you can’t reinvent Grange. So how are we going to keep it vibrant, different? Obviously, we can tweak to try and make a better one than the ’53 or the ’55 or the great ’71, but we have to maintain that stylistic template.”
Rather than view the strict parameters as a restriction, Gago appears excited at the prospect of working around them. “We are open to a bit of disruption and provocation,” he says. A recent example was the Grange La Chapelle 2021 (released in early 2025) – an unconventional 50:50 blend of French Rhône Valley Syrah from the Hill of Hermitage and Australian Shiraz. So unorthodox was the project that bottling it in France was illegal, and the nation’s contribution had to be airfreighted to Australia for its blending and aging.
“Putting these two together made people’s jaws drop,” Gago says. “But then say, ‘why has this never been done before?’” Critic approval was swiftly granted, and a second collaborative release came in early 2026. “There was no risk to reputation – if it wasn’t good we just wouldn’t release it,” Gago says.
Still though, Grange’s future-proofing is less about disruption for disruption’s sake. The ambition is to push boundaries where it makes sense: “We don’t touch the sanctity of Grange in the bottle, but you can move around it,” says Gago. “Maybe we can make a better Grange – but not by changing it or putting ego in.” It’s a refreshingly unflashy philosophy, and perhaps a surprisingly radical one in an age where heritage brands are under pressure to constantly reinvent themselves.
