Complete Penfolds Grange tasting could be the last ever
September 28, 2007
By Richard Woodard
What may be the last ever complete museum set of Penfolds Grange vintages is being tasted today by a panel of wine writers in Australia.
The panel of seven will taste all 54 vintages of Australia's most celebrated wine, from 1952 to 2005, as part of a series of tastings to compile the latest edition of Penfolds' The Rewards of Patience reference guide.
Among the other wines to be tasted for the guide's sixth edition are complete sets of Penfolds St Henri, Yattarna Chardonnay and Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as Penfolds Bins and the extremely rare Special Bins.
The four days of tasting in the Barossa Valley and Adelaide will provide assessments on the wines' drinking and cellaring potential for The Rewards of Patience, which is released every five years.
Edited by Andrew Caillard MW, it incorporates the independent opinions of a range of wine writers – including on this occasion Caillard, James Halliday, Huon Hooke and Campbell Mattinson from Australia; New York-based critic Josh Greene, Neil Beckett from The World of Fine Wine, and Ch'ng Poh Tiong of The Wine Review, Singapore.
'This is possibly the last time a complete set of impeccably-cellared museum Penfolds Grange will be opened and tasted in its entirety,' said Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago.
'Many of these wines are now incredibly rare. We've opened a few of the 1950s vintages overseas recently at recorking clinics and envisage their drinking windows may soon draw to a close.
'On Friday [September 28] we will also see which will be the number one preferred vintage across the last half-century.'
Created by legendary Penfolds winemaker Max Schubert more than 50 years ago, Grange's current vintage is 2002. A complete set of Grange sold recently at Langton's Fine Wine Auction for about AUS$180,000.
Edition five of The Rewards of Patience, published in 2004, went as far as the 2001 Grange. This latest edition will cover as far as the 2005 Grange, which is due to be released in 2010. It will also include the special Bin wines of the 2004 vintage and update the drinking and cellaring progress of the wines previously featured in the fifth edition.
Edition six is scheduled for publication in autumn 2008.
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For those who have never tried Grange, allow me to share my one and only experience with this amazing wine. I shared the 2001 with two friends. We decanted for 3 hours. The first sip was like a jolt of electricity. The wine exploded in the mouth and danced on the tongue. Heavy but not thick and syrupy. Light and bright, like a champagne or a delicate old cognac playing pinball with your palette. Seemingly pure and of one piece, but complex and spicy at the same time. Bright, dazzling fruit. Fine-grained tannins. Oak. Menthol. Everything in its place, nothing in excess. Grange punched at our senses. We were knocked out, frozen in time. This wine commands one's attention, like Nelly Furtado walking into the room.
T. Smith
Hmmm, my only experience with Grange was the '98 which was a vintage somewhat lauded to the sky in South Eastern Australia. It had been cellared properly and there was no evidence of cork taint or failure upon opening last month. What was perceptible was a whole heap of VA on the nose which I for one could not get past. What fruit there was seemed obscured, at least on the nose. The palate was huge, as one would expect, and it definitely had plenty more years in it. I don't expect the VA to clear up much over the years, so I can't understand why anyone would spend so much money on what is after-all just a multi-regional blend which show's no expression of terroir. Give me St Henri any day if this is what one should expect from Grange! A winemaker friend of mine says that Grange is often quite volatile on the nose. I know it's supposed to give the wine a lifted character, but this was too much.
Marcello Fabretti, Perth, Western Australia
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For those who have never tried Grange, allow me to share my one and only experience with this amazing wine. I shared the 2001 with two friends. We decanted for 3 hours. The first sip was like a jolt of electricity. The wine exploded in the mouth and danced on the tongue. Heavy but not thick and syrupy. Light and bright, like a champagne or a delicate old cognac playing pinball with your palette. Seemingly pure and of one piece, but complex and spicy at the same time. Bright, dazzling fruit. Fine-grained tannins. Oak. Menthol. Everything in its place, nothing in excess. Grange punched at our senses. We were knocked out, frozen in time. This wine commands one's attention, like Nelly Furtado walking into the room.
