AUSTRALIAN WINEMAKER Penfolds loves a good number when it comes to naming a bottle of their best harvests. Think Bin 707, Bin 389, Bin 28 – each one neatly fitting into a system that’s been running for so long it’s become a signature of the brand.

But some things are meant to be broken. Enter their Special Shiraz. A limited edition release that ditches the bin number and vintage messaging. Rather, the naming opts for something more direct: a release made to honour Shiraz itself, the grape that has underpinned Penfolds since Max Schubert first used it to blend the first experimental Grange in the early 1950s. That the wine is being released in Grange’s 75th anniversary year underpins the importance this grape has played in building Penfolds profile over the years.

Founded in 1844 by Dr Christopher and Mary Penfold, the winery built its reputation on what it calls House Style – a consistent thread that runs through wines as far apart as Bin 407 and its newer French and Chinese trial releases, all blended across regions rather than tied to a single vineyard. Shiraz sits at the centre of that identity. It’s the grape behind Grange, behind St Henri, behind many of the wines that carry Penfolds’ name into cellars worldwide, and Special Shiraz is a new release built to celebrate the variety on its own terms rather than as a component of something bigger. Much of that knowledge, the winery maintains, isn’t formally documented – it moves from one generation of winemakers to the next through tasting and repetition rather than through a manual, which is part of what Special Shiraz is meant to put on record in bottled form.

Shiraz itself is the reason Australian red wine has the reputation it does. Thick-skinned and heat-tolerant, it produces wines heavy with dark fruit – blackberry, plum, sometimes licorice – layered with black pepper and clove drawn from the skins. In the Barossa Valley, where the variety has been planted since the nineteenth century, the tannins run full and the finish tends toward warmth rather than sharpness.

It’s a mouthfeel built for oak: French for perfume, American for the vanilla and toasted coconut char that Australian Shiraz has become known for internationally. Before it’s matured, it can taste almost combative, with the tannins gripping before the fruit has had time to soften them. But spend a decade or three in the cellar, that same structure eases into the kind of wine collectors would then chase at auction. It’s also a grape suited to the dinner table rather than reserved for it – dense enough for a rib of beef or a hard cheese, without the acidity that makes some reds better suited to a glass on their own.

Special Shiraz is built from fruit selected across multiple regions and brought together through the kind of blending Penfolds has built its name on. It’s matured in a mix of seasoned French oak and new American oak, aiming for a profile described as generous and expressive – dark fruit, spice and aromatic detail carrying a Shiraz that’s powerful without tipping into heaviness. The detail that separates it from a standard release is what’s folded into the blend: a small, deliberate amount of matured Grange, drawn from barrel and originally destined for the 2024 Grange release.

Penfolds Director of Winemaking Steph Dutton frames the addition as part of something rarely spoken about outside the winery – leaning on the top of the portfolio to lift what sits beneath it. The result carries what Penfolds calls its house DNA throughout, while still reading as its own wine rather than Grange’s understudy. 

At a recommended price of $80, Special Shiraz sits well within reach for a wine drawing on fruit destined for one of Australia’s most collected labels.

Special Shiraz is available from August 2026, through penfolds.com and the usual retail network.

Penfolds Special Shiraz

Matured in seasoned French oak and new American oak, with a rich and complex palate of dark fruits, spice and aromatic.

$80 from Penfolds

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