The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall have sampled one of Australia’s greatest wines – the legendary Penfolds 1962 Bin 60A Coonawarra Cabernet Kalimna Shiraz.
‘They loved it’: Premier Jay Weatherill, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles and Peter Gago
The couple, along with South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill, visited Penfolds Magill winery today as part of their six day visit to Australia to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall inspected the vineyards with Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago, who then poured them a glass of the ultra-rare 1962 Bin 60A.
Only 5,100 bottles of this experimental cuvée were made by Penfolds then-winemaker Max Schubert; it went on to win some 19 trophies and be hailed as a classic by the great Californian winemaker André Tchelistcheff, and many others.
The blend unites the cool-climate Cabernet Sauvignon of Penfolds’ Sharam’s Block and Block 20 in Coonawarra, with the far warmer Kalimna vineyard Shiraz from western Barossa, which has long been an important component of Grange.
Penfolds has since gone on to make one other Bin 60A blend, the 2004.
In the November 2012 issue of Decanter, the 1962 features as the back page ‘Wine Legend’, and in August 2004 it was the only New World wine to be listed in Decanter’s Top Ten Greatest Wines of All Time.
In 2008, veteran Australian critic James Halliday said it was ‘possibly the greatest red wine tasted in our times in Australia.’
It is not known what the royal couple said about the wine, of which only a handful of cases remain and which retails in the UK for over £5000 a bottle, though Gago reported; ‘They absolutely loved it.’
Written by Adam Lechmere
