Penfolds Bin 95 Grange 1971 (1x 750mL), SA

Description:

Langton’s Classified: Exceptional

Top Vintage

Silken, opulent with fleshy apricot/prune fruit and truffly, earthy, demi-glace undertones balanced by fine, sweet tannins and an extremely long finish. A superb wine.

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Wine Summary Image

Langton’s Classified: Exceptional

Top Vintage

Silken, opulent with fleshy apricot/prune fruit and truffly, earthy, demi-glace undertones balanced by fine, sweet tannins and an extremely long finish. A superb wine.

Region:
SA - Other South Australian
State:
South Australia
Country:
Australia

Expert Reviews

Of the 1971 Penfolds Grange, winemaker Peter Gago suggests it's "a Grange that doesn't seem to tolerate poor storage or travel". I've had glorious bottles of this and others that were just very good. This one was at the glorious end of the spectrum, however it faded very quickly (after about 30 minutes in the glass) so I would not recommend decanting this wine with lots of air or well in advance of drinking as it seems very fragile.

Deep garnet-brick in color, the nose was incredible to begin, offering an array of meaty, baking spice, incense, Ceylon tea and coffee notes with hints of dried Chinese plum, figs, dates, hazelnuts and aniseed. It fills the mouth with flavor yet is elegant in weight and structure with a medium level of finely grained tannins, enlivening acid and only 12.3% alcohol. The finish is very long and layered. Drink it now.

Rating 95 - Lisa Perotti-Brown MW, (MAY/2012)

Winery Tasting Notes

Notes Image

Colour

Medium brick red.

Aroma

An astonishing wine with intensely sweet, lifted, complex and perfumed prune/apricot/truffle aromas with hints of violet and fig.

Palate

Silken, opulent with fleshy apricot/prune fruit and truffly, earthy, demi-glace undertones balanced by fine, sweet tannins and an extremely long finish. A superb wine.

Wine Background

This wine is a blend of 87 per cent Shiraz and 13 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon and created a sensation when it won gold and topped its class at the Gault-Millau Wine Olympiad in Paris in 1979, beating the best Rhone Valley wines. It also won a trophy, four gold, four silver and five bronze medals at Australian wine shows between 1971 and 1982.

'If you had to point to a wine which fulfilled all the ambitions of Grange, it would have to be 1971,' said Max Schubert in 1993. 'It was a great wine from a vintage that was great throughout South Australia'.

Medals & Trophies

Gold Medal - Melbourne Wine Show, 1976

Gold Medal - Sydney Wine Show, 1976

Gold Medal - Dr. Gilbert Phillip Memorial Trophy

Gold Medal - Sydney Wine Show, 1972

Winery Profile

From humble beginnings in the 1950s, Grange has maintained its place as Australia's most prestigious red wine over five decades. Today, it is a wine of international renown, with each vintage eagerly awaited by collectors both in Australia and overseas.

Penfolds Grange is a wine of extraordinary dimension and power. Richly textured, intensely concentrated and packed with fruit sweetness, these wines, regardless of vintage, require medium to long-term cellaring. They develop into immensely complex, beguiling wines that seduce the senses.

An Australian icon, Grange represents a tradition in winemaking that is totally uncompromising. Grange has bypassed the fads and trends of modern winemaking in the sense that it has maintained an integrity of style and remained true to its origins in the mind of Max Schubert. Penfolds Grange is the quality standard against which all other Australian red wines are judged. To share a mature Grange, 15 to 20 years old, in fine condition, is one of the great wine experiences.

Chris Shanahan, 26 May 2010, The Canberra Times“It has an inky deep colour, overwhelming aroma and flavour impact of ripe, dense, sweet fruit, mouth-flooding tannins, distinctive flavour of American oak and a buoyant lift. This is a great wine of rare dimension. Over many decades, it will mellow and grow paler, becoming more fragile and ethereal.”

Penfolds Bin 95 Grange

The wine market was changing rapidly by the late 1940s, as soldiers returned from the war and new immigrants settled in Australia. Max Schubert, then a young winemaker at Penfolds, returned to Europe after the war to investigate winemaking. The mission was to learn about sherry production, however a side trip to Bordeaux led to Schubert experimenting with a long-lived red wine that he called Grange.

Schubert looks back on the 1950s Grange years as exciting years of discovery, faith, doubt, and ultimately triumph. In contrast, the 1960s were a period of vindication and Grange stole a march on the rest of the Australian wine industry by setting an incomparable benchmark for longevity, concentration and balance.

Penfolds Grange is Australia’s pre-eminent first growth. It is a very perfumed concentrated wine, which combines the intensely rich fruit and ripe tannins of shiraz with the fragrance and complementary nuances of new, fine-grained American oak. Partial barrel fermentation takes place at the tail-end of primary fermentation. It weaves the two elements together producing a meaty complexity and roundness of flavours on the palate.

A portion of cabernet sauvignon is used in some years to enhance the aromatics and palate structure. After vindication the wine is matured in new American oak hogshead for around 20 months. The best vintages last for more than 50 years.

Top Vintages

2010, 2008, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2002, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1991, 1990, 1986, 1980, 1976, 1971, 1966, 1963, 1962, 1955, 1953. The experimental and hidden Granges are extremely rare

View Penfolds - Bin 95 Grange website

Other Information

  • 1971 vintage
  • 1 x 738mL unit
  • SA - Other South Australian, South Australia
  • Cork closure
  • 12.3% alc.

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