Australia’s premium wine, Penfolds Grange, is produced using Shiraz grapes for the bulk, mixed with a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon. Regarded by wine buffs as Australia’s ‘first growth’, Penfolds Grange is hailed as one of the most collectible Australian wines.
It was the it was the perseverance and dedication of a winemaker called Max Schubert that lead to the first vintage of Penfolds Grange. Max had toured around Europe in 1950, watching and learning the wine making techniques used in Bordeaux, France. After returning and resuming work at Penfolds in 1951, Schubert produced his first batch of experimental Grange, a wine designed to rival French releases in aging potential and quality.
When Penfolds Grange was first released in 1951, it was in an era where fortified wines were all the rage and Penfolds Grange was left on the shelf, under-appreciated with its true potential unrecognized. By 1957, Penfolds Grange was still suffering from a lack of sales, causing Penfolds management to cancel future productions of Grange.
Schubert however continued to produce Penfolds Grange in secrecy through 1959. It was in 1960 that Penfolds Grange came into its own with the wine community recognizing its quality. With a new surge in popularity, Schubert was orderd by the management at Penfolds to resume work on more Grange, not knowing that he hadn’t actually stopped in the first place.
Penfolds entered their Grange into its first wine competition in 1962 and from that day onwards has collected over 50 gold medals.
On the older labels of Penfolds Grange, people can find the name ‘Hermitage’ which was used in Australia as another term for Shiraz. In 1990, the name ‘Hermitage’ was excluded from the label after objections from the European Union for Penfolds using a recognized French region name.
Wine fans who are familiar with Penfolds Grange will also notice a large ‘Bin 95′ stamped on the label. Bin 95 refers to the storage location in the Penfolds winery which has been the same location since 1964. In the first vintage it was housed in Bin 1 and in 1952, Bin 4. Different productions were stored in different bins until it found a home in Bin 95.
Its easy to see why Penfolds Grange has one of the richest histories of any Australia wine.
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