Grange is a blend from Penfolds’ top vineyards and best growers, including fruit from Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Wrattonbully (a first for Grange), Coonawarra, Clare Valley and the Magill Estate in the Adelaide Hills...
Grange is a blend from Penfolds’ top vineyards and best growers, including fruit from Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Wrattonbully (a first for Grange), Coonawarra, Clare Valley and the Magill Estate in the Adelaide Hills, where the winery got its start. That fruit selection finishes fermentation in new American oak barrels, where it then ages for 20 months. Peter Gago, who oversees the winemaking team, notes that winter and early-season rains differed substantially from Barossa and Clare down to McLaren Vale and Coonawarra. It was a warm summer to the north, with heat spikes in the south; then rain delayed harvest, allowing the fruit to ripen under generally cooler weather. That, in turn, allowed Gago to blend a plump, succulent Grange with complex layers of flavor, completely savory and ripe. The flavors might bring to mind black olive, black currant and seedy blackberries, accelerated by the espresso scents of new oak. There’s a restrained, slow-motion mineral explosion in the end, taking days to develop, lasting with a formality and elegance that belies the wine’s intoxicating richness. Great vintages of Grange last for decades; the original wines from the 1950s and ’60s are still remarkably fit, as this one should be decades from now.