Antonio Vivaldi's stirring The Four Seasons–which paints a vivid musical picture of birdsong in summer, thunderstorms and peasant dances–holds near-universal recognition even with those who have little musical inclination (myself). This widespread familiarity makes it a prime canvas for reinterpretation by countless performers and conductors many centuries on. 

Yet in 2012 when Max Richter released "Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons", it wasn't a mere rearrangement. Richter had recomposed The Four Seasons entirely, retaining recognisable motifs from the original, but drastically altered rhythms, harmonies, and repetitions. It's a provocative contemporary masterpiece entirely on its own.

(Source: Deutsche Grammophon)

And this was the metaphor invoked by Penfolds' Chief Winemaker Peter Gago, when I asked him to describe to me the recently unveiled collaboration between the renowned Domaine de La Chapelle of Hermitage's storied Syrah vineyards, and the iconic Penfolds of Australia. You hear some familiar notes, but they come together in a way you've never quite experienced before.

The Grange La Chapelle 2021 is the latest, and perhaps the most ambitious, cross-continent blend in Penfolds' resume. It is composed of equal parts French Syrah and Australian Shiraz sourced respectively from the estates of Domaine de La Chapelle in Hermitage, France and Penfolds' prized plots from Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, and Clare Valley - some of these vines dating back to the 19th century and had been blissfully untouched by phylloxera which had once devastated European vineyards.

Wine lovers might immediately grasp the intriguing idea behind this collaboration. After all, Syrah and Shiraz are two sides of the same coin-technically the same grape varietal, but cultivated in different corners of the globe and thus expressing their identities in strikingly different ways depending upon terroir. In France's Rhône Valley, Syrah is renowned for its elegantly structured reds, peppery spice, minerality, and a savoury depth. Meanwhile, in Australia, Shiraz thrives in abundant sunlight, producing wines famed for their powerful, fruit-forward intensity, brimming with dark berries, ripe plums and richness.

It was this duality that sparked the imagination of Caroline Frey, Chief Winemaker of Domaine de La Chapelle, and Peter Gago, the driving force behind Penfolds. They posed a provocative question: What if these two radically distinct wine-making traditions were reunited in a single bottle?

Domaine de La Chapelle itself has a mythic status amongst seasoned collectors of French wine. Its legendary Hermitage La Chapelle stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the world's most coveted bottles, known particularly for its astonishing longevity and its tension between power and elegance.

On the other hand, Penfolds' Grange holds an equally iconic status and most certainly stands as Australia's most prestigious wine today, capturing the essence of Australia's greatest Shiraz with its dense, concentrated character, structure and similarly long ageing potential.

The inaugural Grange La Chapelle 2021 is priced at SG$3,200 a bottle and is now available through the Grange La Chapelle website.

We were given the opportunity to attend the launch of this intriguing cuvée in Singapore. It was a rare chance-not just to taste this prestige blend, but to sit down with the minds behind it!

Delphine Frey and Peter Gago, leading our tasting of the Grange La Chapelle 2021.

But before that, let's first taste this remarkable prestige blend ourselves.

Wine Review: Penfolds Grange La Chapelle

50% 2021 La Chapelle, Hill of Hermitage, Rhône Valley (20% new oak) blended with 50% 2021 Grange from a collection of select vineyards in Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Clare Valley (100% new oak).

The winemakers' vintage conditions for 2021 offer two very different narratives. The grapes sourced from La Chapelle in 2021 saw a vintage of restraint and finesse, made under more pressure, with spring frost and persistent rains, before conditions became warmer and drier in mid-July onwards. In contrast, Grange 2021 saw near-perfect conditions with more stable climate, optimal rainfall and warmth during budburst and flowering, and crucially, no heatwaves during ripening. To some degree, you might say that Penfolds' secret weapon of regional blending plays a role in ensuring a supply of high quality fruit.

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Dense blood red core with purple hues at the edges.

Aroma: Sheer elegance and expressiveness - a vivid, layered bouquet that felt like burying my nose in a bowl of rich potpourri, lavender and crushed rose petals, all laced with a gentle sweetness of vanilla that was already super well-integrated. Exuberant, lively primary fruit notes of red and black berries, with trace sarsaparilla and a sheen of liquorice. Everything felt incredibly smooth and almost velvety, with a polished density of some sweet oak and toffee notes following.

With air, the nose deepens further into richer and darker territory with dark cherries coming into sharper focus, earthiness of fresh soil, and those subtle, slightly tangy malolactic fermentation notes. Eventually, dark chocolates, coffee grounds, punctuated by more classic European oak notes if powdery tobacco box. There's a gentle push of spices and herbs along with mild minerality. Some highlights of violets keeping this a little lifted.

Taste: Smooth-textured, with a medium body that's focused rather than weighty. Immediate notes of racy, vibrant red fruit, moving towards lively plum, skin and all, and brambly notes that bring out structure and texture. Tannins are lightly grippy, a little assertive as expected at this age, but fairly well-balanced by the richness of fruit, especially when compared to the more brooding, layered profile of classic Grange.

This seamlessly transitions into more herbal and spicy notes, with sarsaparilla, mint, star anise and a hint of rosemary, and throughout, the plum skin-tannin backbone lingers, leaving a pleasing tension on the palate. Lively acidity is evident from the start, and though it slowly yields to those creamy, malolactic notes, the freshness never fully disappears.

Finish: Persistent long after swallowing, tapering out slowly with a subtle touch of sweet oak and those creamy, warm malolactic milk sugars. There's a clean, mineral streak, with continued grippiness and a hint of herbal freshness, all underpinned by a long, smooth bitterness that reminded me of burnt ends, hazelnut, dark chocolate, and even a little lager hop character. It just keeps going with bitterness evolving and mingling with the wine's inherent fruit and some savoury dark soy depths.

My Thoughts

My immediate reaction was simply: what a layered and fantastic nose! There is so much going on, and all of it remarkably harmonious right from the start.

That sense of creaminess and the fine-grained tannins really stood out on the palate for me. And even now, as Peter Gago described it, the wine is still in its "puppy fat" stage, showing off a core of lively red and dark fruits and a level of concentration that's seriously impressive. I know I'm not the only one saying this, but it's impressive how seamless it all feels, as if this blend is a wine entirely of its own, not just a meeting of Grange and La Chapelle but a genuine synthesis.

Compared to a classic Grange from the same vintage, which usually brings more density, oak, and dark chocolate, I'd say this wine is more lifted, more elegant, more refined, and perhaps a little more approachable. I have to agree with Peter's Max Richter metaphor: just like that recomposed Vivaldi, you can't pick out Grange or La Chapelle individually here; everything coalesces into a plush, silky fruit core with complex fresh herbs, violets, calibrated oak, and a truly fine tannic structure. And it all works together in a sort of understated symphony.

This will mature impressively in the decades to come. And considering the warm and dry 2022 vintage of Hermitage which is resulting in some really concentrated and ripe fruits, it'd also be interesting to see how the Grange La Chapelle 2022 contrasts with this Grange La Chapelle 2021 when both wines have come of age.

In conversation with Peter Gago and Delphine Frey

After our tasting, we also got the chance to have a brief conversation with Peter Gago and Delphine Frey, co-owner of Domaine de La Chapelle and sister to Caroline Frey, to learn more about the story behind the Grange La Chapelle collaboration.

Speaking with both of them was like uncorking the Grange La Chapelle itself – immediately layered and incisive. Peter and Delphine leapt from one vivid metaphor to another with joy for the craft, from "puppy fat" to Max Richter's recomposed Vivaldi, and even the iconic moment of first meeting between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. 

What followed was a fascinating back-and-forth: part masterclass, part jazz session on how two winemakers with vastly different traditions found unexpected harmony in an equal blend. Here's our conversation in full.

"In this instance, you know, with old La Chapelle vintages, very familiar, with old Granges, we’re also very familiar, but there’s a little bit of a leap of faith here as well."

– Peter Gago, on the leap of faith involved in creating the Grange La Chapelle.

[88B]: How has this 2021 vintage of Grange La Chapelle evolved since it was bottled, and how do you expect it to evolve over the years?

[Peter]: It even evolves today as a pour it in the glass. You just watch it change and transform but I'll generalise here – you know at the moment it's got a lot of puppy fat on it. Its primary fruit, the exuberance of youth, the capacity of youth and, what will probably happen after five to ten years you'll get some secondary notes appearing. Then probably after 20 to 25 years, you get the tertiary notes, but is it going to go down the aged Syrah pathway, or is it going to go down what an old Rhône looks like or an old Penfolds, although probably it will not. We’re guessing at this point. I often joke, “if only you could put it in a microwave and accelerate the aging,” but we can't do that *laughs*. Oh, we probably can do that, but I wouldn't advise it!

[Delphine]: It’s also the reverse. When you drink wines from 1978 or older, we would like to be able to compare that with how it tasted when it was young. Both La Chapelle and Grange are wines with really great aging potential, so we can imagine that we'll have very specific and signature tertiary notes that we have from Grange or La Chapelle in older vintages. We’ll have to see how it comes together.

The 1961 vintage of La Chapelle Hermitage is particularly legendary, often considered one of the greatest wines ever made. (Source: Sotheby's)

[Peter]: But you never know, that's part of the art of making wine. When it comes to Champagne [for instance], there’s nothing worse than a [young] base wine of Champagne that is all acidic, and you've got to make the jump, the leap of faith, from, there, with time on the lees, yeast autolysis, and you're trying to predict – over time, experientially – you get a feel for that.

In this instance, you know, with old La Chapelle vintages, very familiar, with old Granges, we’re also very familiar, but there’s a little bit of a leap of faith here as well. We'd like to think we get the best of both, but what if we get the worst of both? *Laughs*. There’s no such thing but there's a little bit of risk even there, but that's what's exciting about it, and we’re going on the journey with these wines, and tasting them over time, that's what we'll do, we're putting some into the museum, you're probably putting some into [La Chapelle’s] museum, and that will be opened over time, you know, if we have this conversation at 50’ years time, we’ll know if we're right or we're completely wrong. That's the lovely thing about wine – you can't be too prescriptive but at the same time you have a sixth sense.

[88B]: We’d love to hear about the collaborative process in developing the Grange La Chapelle 2021.

Was there a particular flavour profile in both of your combined imagination that you sought to uncover during your blending trials?

[Peter]: You asked about the flavour we expected. Caroline [of Domaine de La Chapelle] was very much focused, rightfully so, on structure and tannins. And I remember making Sangiovese many years ago. I was obsessed with flavour, but I was advised, “Don’t worry about the flavour, get the tannins right and the flavour will follow.” I think with this project as well, Caroline was very, very wise about the idea that, oh yes, the flavour's nice, but the structure is what sold her–the tannins, the phenolic make-up, and the point of difference there. And then, oh yeah, the aromatics and the flavour–that was sort of secondary and tertiary, almost in terms of priority. It was the structure and tannins. Was it like chalk and cheese? Was it like oil and water? Sum of the parts.

I’ve seen a lot of wines, and we had our own wine, Bin 149 [an 85%, 15% Californian-Australian Cabernet blend], a few years ago. That one was weird, but I said, “Magnificent Cabernet!” There’s the oak, there's the fruit, and we just had to get something to harmonise and put it together. But with this wine, they coalesced, they dovetailed, nothing seemed out of place. And as the wine unfurls, you'll see more gracious aromatics. But it's that structure and balance.

[Delphine]: Yes and I think there’s really this curiosity – knowing Grange and knowing La Chapelle, how would they react together?

[Peter]: But it’s so good we didn't know that beforehand, because I would have gone, “Oh, of course, it's as we suspected.” There wasn't any self-fulfilling prophecy or preordained result. Sometimes we talk ourselves into things, and that's the wonderful thing about blind tasting–to focus on how this is structurally coalescing. Does this work? Is there harmony? And there was!

It wasn't dialed up, it wasn't formularised, it wasn't a chemical equation. It was just a very innocent two measuring cylinders, so we can't over-intellectualise it. It's pretty basic in many ways, and that's what makes it so good.

[88B]: Are there any interesting lessons or perspectives that Penfolds would carry forward from this collaboration?

[Peter]: I think you can have two different cultures, two different winemaking approaches, two different ideas. La Chapelle would never see the completion of fermentation in barrel–that's what Grange brings to the equation. We would never source Syrah fruit from the soils and rock at Hermitage. So we're bringing many more variables to the table. And they have come together, and you couldn't have predicted that.

[Delphine]: Yeah, it's the same grape variety, but shaped by different climates and soil. This is two sides of the same coin. That's really what each one brings. It's a different expression of Syrah.

[Peter]: In all honesty, the simplicity of it—you don't have to know the chemistry of it, or the physics of it, or the science of it. It's in the glass.

We don't have to know how it happened. It has happened. We'll work it out later. And that's the thing. There may be years–like in a really cool year, for example, in South Australia–combined with a really hot year in the Rhône, or vice versa. We put them together, as we will do on the trials. We don't know that yet. We've been very lucky in 2021, 2, 3, and 4. But maybe in 2029, an extreme climate here and an extreme climate there, and they don't coalesce. So it's still a hard-earned learning curve.

[88B]: If both of you were to pick a song or album from your collection that best embodies Grange La Chapelle 2021, what would it be–and why?

[Peter]: I will talk classical – not soul, not rhythm and blues, but classical – if you talk about Vivaldi, there’s a new Max Richter recomposition album of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. There's this tune – one of the Seasons. I've heard the tune before, but I've never heard it expressed in that way, and I think that's like this blend: unexpected. I know Grange, I know La Chapelle, but I've never seen it expressed in this way, like Max Richter's Vivaldi.

[Delphine]: Back when we were in Australia, we described the Grange La Chapelle as the meeting between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones!

(Source: Victor Blackman / Stringer)

@CharsiuCharlie