Producer of the Year: Penfolds
At a time when Australian wine seems beset by persistent 
problems affecting its reality as well as its image, Penfolds remains solid as a rock. Oversupply and chronic drought are specters that will likely loom over the country’s industry well into the future, and a hardening reputation among casual consumers as a source of cheap ‘Critter Wine’ is scarcely less worrisome. The value of Australian wine shipped to the USA declined in 2008, as did the average value of the cases that were shipped. And yet, anyone who wishes to defend Australia’s importance and potential excellence need only point to Penfolds.
If there is another winery in the world that is more consistent in 
producing lots of delicious wine at accessible price levels while also crafting extraordinary mid-range and high-end wines, I am unaware of it. In some instances, a country’s most famous producer is also arguably its best, but it is exceedingly rare for such a producer also to turn out a full range of wines–white as well as red–that excels at every price point. Aside from Penfolds, the entire world of wine includes only one such producer, Catena in Argentina, and Penfolds makes much more wine–and has been doing it in a remarkably consistent way for much longer.
Penfolds is so solid that you can blindfold yourself, point anywhere in the portfolio, and hit a winner. The “Koonunga Hill” line is often discounted to prices below $10 and includes some remarkable over-achievers (Shiraz-Cabernet and Shiraz are often my favorites, but the Chardonnay, Cabernet and Cabernet-Merlot can also be very good). At the next level up, the “Thomas Hyland” line (widely available for $15 or less) includes wonderful Riesling, Cabernet and Shiraz, as well as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. The next step up is the “Bin Range,” generally available for $25 or less, including Bin 407 Cabernet, Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz and Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz, as well as the extraordinary Bin 389 Cabernet-Shiraz (priced a few dollars higher), sometimes called “Baby Grange” and capable not just of surviving but actually improving for 20 years.
The Penfolds “Special Bin” and “Cellar Reserve” wines are very rare, but the top-level wines are made in quantities sufficient to find them fairly readily around the world. Three quite distinctive and quite remarkable Shiraz bottlings (St. Henri, Magill Estate and ‘RWT’) are all delicious on release but capable of developing 
for decades, and the same is true for the amazing Bin 707 Cabernet. The top-level white is Yattarna Chardonnay, which is still in flux in terms of grape sourcing but has been terrific in its best vintages. And the Penfolds flagship, Grange, is widely regarded as the best wine of the entire Southern Hemisphere and is almost certainly one of the world’s ten greatest wines.
If there is a single person responsible/creditable for all of this excellence, it is Peter Gago, Director of Winemaking for Penfolds. His work as a winemaker speaks for itself, and since 
I’ve considered him a friend for years, I shouldn’t gush about him here. I would observe, however, that aside from having mastered his craft, he remains conspicuous among his peers in the winemaking elite for his tirelessness as a student of wine and his ardor as a lover of it. His curiosity is boundless, and he is the one winemaker from whom I always learn something important during each meeting–often about Champagne or Port or something quite disconnected from his own wines. One suspects that Penfolds will not only maintain its lofty stature under his leadership, but continue to extend its accomplishments in heretofore unseen directions.
Wine of the Year: Vilafonté, Paarl (South Africa) ‘Series M’ 2004:
The Vilafonté project is a combined effort of California winemaker Zelma Long and grower Phil Freese, along with South African 
wine marketeer Mike Ratcliffe. The ‘Series M’ and its stablemate ‘Series C’ are both extraordinary in 2004, and though this bottling is the less expensive of the two, it is more complex and interesting at the current stage of its development (though the tighter, more intense Series C may actually prove the better of the two someday).
A blend of 36% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot, 25% Malbec and 8% Cabernet Franc, the 2004 Series M offers wonderful notes of dark cherries, plums and cassis, along with lovely accents of autumn leaves, cedar, spices, and toast. The integration of all of these notes is excellent in the sense that they remain distinct but are still so proportionate that the wine seems complete and seamless. I scored this incredible wine at 95 points, and at a full retail price of $52, it should be causing sleepless nights for those selling Bordeaux or Napa Cabernet for more than $100. Imported by Broadbent Selections, it is available in many markets as well as online from sites like wine-searcher.com
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