Penfolds premieres a short film honouring its most iconic wine
Directed by the award-winning Alexis Gómez, The Memory of Music is an ode to the Shiraz-dominant Grange…
“Do you hear the music now?” That’s the final line spoken in a new short film from Penfolds, created by award-winning director Alexis Gómez. And he certainly hears it — every strain and flourish — having previously directed music videos for international musicians including the Greek-Sudanese Marina Satti, Honduran-American Empress Of and Mexican alt-rock band Porter.
Penfolds hears the music, too. Just this year, the Australian winemaker unveiled a new partnership with Grammy-nominated native Troye Sivan — the latest in a line of official collaborators following the appointment of streetwear designer Nigo in 2023.
But such creative alliances have long been central to the brand. Since 2012, woodworker Andrew Bartlett has crafted commemorative boxes for its most ambitious releases, and this latest visionary collaboration sees Gómez usher the winemaker into the world of film. The short is called The Memory of Music, and is a “cinematic exploration” of Grange, the most powerful expression of Penfolds’ multi-vineyard, multi-district blending philosophy.
We open on a couple at a leafy coastal café, joining them as they reminisce about the summer they first met — dancing on a sailboat — over a bottle of Grange. It’s a delightful story, but the tale of Grange itself perhaps outshines the couple’s meet-cute. The Shiraz-dominant blend began its own story when Penfolds’ legendary chief winemaker, Max Schubert, travelled to Bordeaux in 1950 and returned with plans to create an experimental Australian vintage that could “stay alive for a minimum of twenty years”.
Back in his homeland, Schubert began experimenting with fruit from both Morphett Vale and Penfolds’ spiritual home, the iconic Magill Estate just outside Adelaide. He blended tradition with his newfound French techniques, aided by the expertise of prominent wine chemist Ray Beckwith. Together, they created the first expression of Grange in 1951.
And the name? That was chosen to honour the brand’s founders, Dr Christopher and Mary Penfold, English émigrés who established the winery in 1844 and lived at the foot of the Mount Lofty Ranges, in Grange Cottage.
And yet — unlike the couple in Gómez’s new short film — it sadly wasn’t love at first sip for Grange and the Penfolds board. In 1957, when Schubert presented his wine at a tasting for senior management and a handful of experts, it was met with such scathing criticism that Grange was indefinitely shelved.
Schubert, happily, was undeterred. Over the following years, the tenacious vintner devoted himself to a series of clandestine winemaking missions, taking the Grange experiments underground — quite literally — as he retreated to Magill Estate’s cellars to ensure the secrecy of his project.
In partnership with then Penfolds scion Jeffrey Penfold Hyland, Schubert produced three “hidden” Grange vintages (1957, 1958, 1959) and, by 1960, had won over the board to his vision. Grange endured — and set out on the legacy-defining path it continues to follow today.
Much like the couple in The Memory of Music, it’s the courtship and chemistry of disparate, distinctive elements that make Grange sing. Drawn from different parcels, the fine Shiraz grapes come together in harmony, composing a rich, structured wine celebrated for its aromatic complexity, lush fruit, supple tannins and subtle hints of American oak.
These characteristics are further deepened through partial barrel fermentation and around a year-and-a-half of oak maturation, while careful bottle ageing allows the wine to continue evolving. It’s a symphony of complexity, a chorus of flavours whose vintage line has remained unbroken since that very first experiment in 1951.
The short film (which you can watch in full above) follows our couple describing a memory — of a song — using words, emotions and shared experiences. Gómez gives us glimpses of flowers, curtains, dresses, and painted nails — all in Grange red. And the whole thing is a reminder that, whether it’s a half-forgotten tune or a generously poured glass, the smallest detail can unlock moments from our past.
The film’s first line mirrors its last: “Didn’t you say music is like a memory?” With so many stories swirled into Grange’s long, illustrious and enduring history, you could just as easily say the same about wine.
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