Penfolds St. Henri Shiraz at auction
Buying & Selling at auction

St. Henri Background - brief

Penfolds, being somewhat forward thinking during the 1950’s, engaged its winemakers to create new wines. At the same time that Max Schubert was secretly making Grange, John Davoren was tasked with crafting St Henri. It was created intentionally to rival Penfolds Grange following conventional wine making techniques rather than defying them like Schubert had.

Naming and revival of St. Henri

While trying to come up with a name for the wine he wanted to create, Davoren came across some old labels when he was rummaging around the loft of the Auldana winery. Turn of the century labels he found were for a St. Henri Claret that was first made around 1890 by the French winemaker, Edmond Mazure, who, it is assumed, probably named the wine after his son.

First vintage controversy

Experimental vintages of John Davoren’s St Henri were produced in the early 50’s with the commercial release in 1957 even though the wines name has a history going back to the beginning of the century. So, in theory, the original St Henri stems back to around 1890 and a number of the original St Henris have surfaced over the years and are very valuable and significant historical items.

What are mature vintages of St. Henri drinking like ?

The original St. Henri was made to rival Penfolds Grange and has very mild oak nuances and matures beautifully. However, a number of vertical tastings have shown that, in some wine critics opinion, Penfolds started to lose the plot by the 1970’s with noticeable austerity, except for exceptional vintages such as the 1971 and 1976 and it starts to change noticeably around the 1986 vintage coming around in the 1990’s.

How long should St. Henri be cellared for ?

Early vintages of the Penfolds St. Henri's appear to be aging quite well and any number of the better 70’s vintages are still drinking very well. Good vintages of St Henri will cellar quite nicely for 20 to 30 years plus.

An example of what has sold in previous auctions this year (2015)

Please note, the sold price does NOT include the commission paid (10%).

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Current auction results and price guide for Penfolds St. Henri.

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Recent and historical values paid at auction in Australia

Valid December 2024

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Values have been aggregated from national secondary market data.

Notes on pricing and valuation

Low Range
Typically, price clusters form over time at market value. The low value is then calculated from the average accumulated hammer price at auction from multiple Australian wine auction houses over a 6 month period. All prices are for bottles with no damage or ullage. Well stored bottles with a documented purchase and storage history will always attract the best prices.

High Range
High prices are typically outliers or record high values achieved over a long period of time and,typically, includes only a very low sample of bottles sold, never the average and most often only a single bottle.

Last sale
This figure is not shown, as using it in isolation can produce a false sense of the true value of a bottle.

A note on auction reserves
All auction houses generally set a reserve price 10% less than the low price range. This allows for fluctuations of the market price going down as well as up.

• Sell your Penfolds St Henri at auction
• Bid on Penfolds St. Henri at auction
• Guide to pricing wine

Author: Mark Wickman
wineauction@wickman.net.au  Google+ Profile