Penfold’s Grange 2014
Penfold’s Grange is the top wine of their incredible line up. Everything that can be said has been. It has been lauded for many decades. One of the great wines of the world.
Grange started off as an experiment in 1951 by then winemaker Max Schubert to see if he could make a great wine like the ones he had tasted in Bordeaux on a recent trip. Wines that not only were great but could be great for many years when kept in cellar.
Without much initial support Max labored in secret over the wine for several years in defiance of the board in the late 50’s finding success and production approval again with his efforts in 1960. The wine has grown in fame steadily since that time.
We have been offered a special allocation of the Vintage 2014. A very small allocation. With a very special price.
Read more about Penfold’s Grange below or skip all the way to the bottom to Purchase now.
Winemaker Notes
Deep plush garnet color throughout – from core to rim. Umami expressed primarily via wafts of shiitake mushroom stock, hoisin and XO sauce … enhancing scents of dry-aged beef and game meats. Olive-leaf, cardamom, sage and thyme … “a stroll through a South Australian olive grove” … saltbush, acacia, dried and dusty bracken. Fresh and familial lifted formic and barrel-ferment nuances. Quite simply, an unmistakable youthful ‘Grange’ nose. Awakened primary fruits and stylish oak interlocked and indistinguishable. As expected.
On the palate, the wine is savory, not fruity. Tastes/flavors remind of slow-cooked beef ragout, chicken liver game terrine. Red liquorice also apparent. Integrated oak – spicy, almost ‘non-American’ oak … but it is. As it always is. A core of 100% new Quercus alba. Poised yet powerful. A balanced, tightly-knit and woven structural ‘tapestry’. Not to be constrained by dimension or frame. Tannins with attitude! Nonetheless respectful. Type? Slatey tannins … alluvial, silty (certainly not muddy!). Long and lingering – tactile impressions indistinguishably and slowly fuse/merge into an aftertaste memory. Until the next sip! A Grange to create new friends – this 2014 offering a subtly different structural mosaic; different tone and timbre.
Blend: 98% Shiraz and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon
The critics have their say.
“Rich, concentrated and intense, the 2014 Grange delivers exactly what we’ve come to expect from this Penfolds icon wine. It’s full-bodied, velvety in feel and loaded with plummy fruit, framed in vanilla and cedar. Dense, powerful and tannic, it should prove to be long lived, even by Grange standards. Gago doesn’t rate the vintage overall that highly, but he says the selection this year for Grange was a bit more stringent and that production levels were just average.”
WS
“At first glance, this is a purely indulgent wine, with gobs of creamy, milk chocolate–laden maraschino cherry, raspberry framboise and Earl Grey tea aromas. Then wave after wave of elements start filling in, with toasted cumin, peppermint oil, Kalamata olive and white pepper notes, combining into an almost overwhelming amount of details. Becomes indulgent again on the long, lush finish. Drink now through 2035”.
Decanter
The 2014 Grange is a blend of 98% Shiraz and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from Barossa Vale, McLaren Vale, Wrattonbully, Coonawarra, Clare Valley and Magill Estate. Harvest was variable between the regions, with heat spikes and St Valentine’s Day rain contributing to a long, slow ripening, or, in arcane Peter Gago-speak: ‘a timely pre-harvest vintage mnemonic’. It’s matured for 20 months in new American oak hogsheads, and the perfumes are quite lovely, already pronounced and distinctly Grange, with subtle but intense liquorice, the vanilla spice of American oak, blackberry and damson fruits, and underlying gamey notes. There’s a silky quality to the texture on the palate, showing depth, balance and complexity with concentrated blackberry and a hint of dark chocolate. As the tannins appear to be softer, juicier and more approachable than previous, more ‘classic’ Granges at this stage, the voluptuousness presages well for excellent medium-to-long-term drinking, starting in the next couple of years. It will star with slow-cooked pork belly or boeuf en daube. Drinking Window 2020 – 2040
97 Points JD
“It’s always a pleasure to taste what unquestionably the reference point wine for Australia, and the 2014 Grange doesn’t disappoint. From a more difficult vintage for South Australia, it’s a blend of 98% Shiraz and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon that spent 20 months in all new American oak hogsheads, hitting a normal alcohol level of 14.5 with a healthy pH and acidity. Inky purple/blue colored, it offers a rocking bouquet of ripe plums, blueberries, vanilla bean, espresso, and graphite, with hints of mint and flowers developing with time in the glass. Deep, rich, fabulously concentrated, and pure on the palate, it stays tight and compact, with notable precision and length. It’s a seriously structured yet impeccably balanced effort that needs a solid 5-6 years to shed some tannin and gain volume, and will keep for 2+ decades after that”.
“Shows a cooler and more savory style from the get go. Darker, spicy aromas with notes of clove and soy, blackberries, bracken and wood, dried orange and dark chocolate. The depth of flavor is undeniable. There’s elegance here too, in the sense that it is chiseled and contained, only broadening out at the finish. This has some growth to come in the bottle. Peter Gago’s description of the tannins as ‘slaty’ is spot on; they are dark, stony and slick, smooth and strong. The flavors hang long into a tight, toasty and spicy finish. Luxuriant, long and powerful. A blend of 98 per cent shiraz and two per cent cabernet sauvignon, sourced from Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Wrattonbully, Coonawarra, Clare Valley and Magill Estate. 20 months in 100 per cent new American-oak hogsheads. Try from 2025 and best after 2030”.