PENFOLDS ECHA RAÍCES EN SUELO AMERICANO

MORE THAN 20 YEARS AGO, THE FAMOUS AUSTRALIAN WINERY CAME TO THE UNITED STATES IN SEARCH OF FERTILE GROUND ON WHICH TO MAKE WINE IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. AS A RESULT OF ALL ITS HARD WORK SINCE THAT TIME, PENFOLDS HAS PRODUCED ITS FIRST WINES USING GRAPES GROWN ON AMERICAN SOIL.

At the turn of this century, the Penfolds winemakers began looking at everything that was going on in viticulture on the West Coast of the United States, and specifically in California. They tested a variety of wines and identified numerous different terroirs where they considered cultivating vines. Between 1998 and 1999, the first plantings were carried out selectively, using vine cuttings from some of Penfolds’ finest Australian vineyards. Today, these vineyards represent a milestone in the winery’s quest to make wines in a different hemisphere, far away from its origin, and it has done so “the Penfolds way.”

We asked Peter Gago, chief winemaker at Penfolds, why the winery chose California rather than another part of the world, such as Europe. “Our California project actually started in 1989, when the then-Penfolds Wine Pty Ltd acquired a 50% stake in the Geyser Peak Winery in Sonoma.