Penfolds Bin 95 Grange 1999
Style: Red Wine
Variety: Shiraz
Closure: Cork
Penfolds Bin 95 Grange 1999
Camberwell
Burke Road
Camberwell VIC 3124
Australia
Producer: Penfolds
Country: Australia
Region: Multi Regional SA
Vintage: 1999
Critic Score: 100
Alcohol: 14.5 %
Size: 750 ml
Drink by: 2045
Penfolds Rewards of Patience tasting panel 2021 - 5/5 rating
James Halliday Top 100 Wines of 2004
Penfolds Bin 95 Grange Shiraz is Australia's most famous wine with a reputation for superb fruit complexity and flavour richness. It is the most powerful expression of Penfolds multi-vineyard, multi-district blending philosophy and is officially listed as a Heritage Icon of South Australia. One of the world's great wines.
"It is an astonishingly lovely wine. The palate is deeply concentrated with curtains of plum apricot fruit, fine supple tannins, beautifully integrated malty oak and superb flavour length. It is certainly a most seductive wine with plenty of cellaring potential. This is certainly great Grange." Andrew Caillard MW
The 1999 Penfolds Grange is 100% shiraz (for only the fourth time after 1951, 1952 and 1963) from premium vineyards in the Barossa Valley (including the Kalimna vineyard), Magill Estate, McLaren Vale and Padthaway. The wine was matured for 17 months in American oak hogsheads (100% new).
"Impenetrable deep red/purple. Nose: Blackberry and blueberry fruit interwoven with perfectly tuned, malty, savoury oak, with liquorice and anise notes hovering above. Upon sitting there is a whirling aromatic shift, the wine becoming more complex, deeper, richer and darker. Palate: Layers of fruit, with blackberry and blueberry to the fore, as suggested by the nose. An underlying tarriness and new oak are seamlessly absorbed. A mass of fine grained tannins court a firm tight finish of great length." Peter Gago - Penfolds Chief Winemaker
"Deep crimson. Lifted black cherry, blackberry and black olive aromas with grilled nut, mocha spice and oak notes. Well-concentrated blackberry, dark cherry, mulberry, black olive, liquorice flavours, vigorous dense chalky tannins, lovely mid-palate viscosity and underlying grilled nut, mocha, vanilla, marzipan oak complexity. Finishes chocolaty firm with plentiful sweet fruit. A substantial Grange – beautifully framed by strong persistent tannins. Will it overhaul the 1998 in 20 years' time? Drinking well, but will improve with time. Peak drinking now to 2065.
Vintage Conditions: The 1999 vintage in South Australia was defined by generally dry and cool weather conditions during early summer, temporarily disrupted by a hot spell in late January before moderate conditions during vintage. Multi-regional sourcing and strong vineyard management resulted in parcels of fruit being harvested with hallmark fruit richness and ripe tannins." Penfolds
Expert reviews
"Deep crimson. Lifted black cherry, blackberry and black olive aromas with grilled nut, mocha spice and oak notes. Well-concentrated blackberry, dark cherry, mulberry, black olive, liquorice flavours, vigorous dense chalky tannins, lovely mid-palate viscosity and underlying grilled nut, mocha, vanilla, marzipan oak complexity. Finishes chocolaty firm with plentiful sweet fruit. A substantial Grange – beautifully framed by strong persistent tannins. Will it overhaul the 1998 in 20 years' time?" Penfolds Rewards of Patience tasting panel 2021 - 5/5 rating
"The forthcoming release of 1999 Penfolds Grange will no doubt create plenty of media and consumer interest. I am often asked about Grange vintages. It is a wine which I know extremely well. My involvement in the Penfolds Red Wine Clinics and various tastings over the years including three editions of the Penfolds Rewards of Patience. Inevitably - like the 1962 versus 1963 and 1990 versus the 1991 - the 1999 Penfolds Grange will lie in the shadow of the much hyped but beautifully made 1998 vintage. While I admired the 1998 greatly at the recent Rewards of Patience tasting I preferred the 1999 vintage (by a whisker). Indeed it is an astonishingly lovely wine with really fragrant plum/prune/tobacco/aniseed aromas, apricot nuances and meaty complexity. The palate is deeply concentrated with curtains of plum apricot fruit, fine supple tannins, beautifully integrated malty oak and superb flavour length. It is certainly a most seductive wine with plenty of cellaring potential. This is certainly great Grange." Andrew Caillard MW – 100 points
"Only the third Grange to be made with 100 per cent shiraz, all the others having had a touch of cabernet sauvignon. It has also emerged from the shadow of the 1998, as its initial touch of masculine austerity has (appropriately) softened, revealing its lovely amalgam of black fruits, warm spice and gentle vanillan oak. The tannins are not aggressive, but will help the long life ahead. Drink: 2009-2034." James Halliday, The Weekend Australian - 96 points and Top 100 Wines of 2004
"Superbly elegant, reserved and harmonious shiraz, reflecting the intensity and brightness of the pristine small berry flavours so typical of the 1999 South Australian vintage. A briary perfume of violets, raspberries, blueberries, dark plums and cassis is sympathetically matched by assertive nuances of vanilla and chocolate oak aromas. Silky-smooth, beautifully controlled and refined, its long and willowy palate reveals intense and translucent small berry flavours superbly integrated with oak and satiny tannins. A profound change in style from the 1998 release that reflects the very best of its vintage. Drink 2019-2029+." Jeremy Oliver – 96 points
"The first Grange since 1963 to be 100 percent shiraz – and doesn't it show it in all its glory. This is a fabulous, to-die-for Grange, the perfect follow-up to the extraordinary 1998. Full of luscious, elevated, malty oak and crawling with deliciously spiced, leather-like, licorice-laden, plum-infused, blackberried fruit, it's gorgeously fine and supple and long, with a magnificent silkiness and a sense of power, balance and finesse almost second to none. Given a good decant it drinks outstandingly well already, but it will live for a very long time. Given that time, this will become a top-shelf Grange, liable to one day rate higher. Drink: Now- 2026." Campbell Mattinson, Winefront Monthly – 96 points
"Big and hugely dense wine with attractive spice, licorice, tar, fruit cake etc etc. A big and powerful wine that promises much. Long." Bob Campbell MW - 96 points
"Only the third Grange to be produced from 100% Shiraz, the 1999 Grange is superb. It boasts an inky purple color as well as unformed but gorgeously sweet notes of blackberries intermixed with smoke, licorice, and roasted meats. A wine of great intensity, sweet tannin, voluptuous texture, and a spectacularly long finish, it will be at its finest between 2007-2025." Robert Parker, Wine Advocate - 94/96 points
"Vanilla, chocolate, oak is still showing. Later: classic aniseed, licorice and floral blackberry superripe aromas of the year. Deep, dense, tannic and yet supple, this is very packed and fleshy, stately and classic Grange style. Black fruits; very deep, profound in fact. Now to 30 years." Huon Hooke, The Real Review - 95 points
Awards
Penfolds Rewards of Patience tasting panel 2021 - 5/5 rating
James Halliday Top 100 Wines of 2004
The story of grange
1931
In a sign of Max Schubert's determination to make his mark on Australia's wine industry, he did whatever he could to get his foot in the door at Penfolds, joining the company as a messenger boy in 1931. By 1948, at the age of 33, Max Schubert became Penfolds first Chief Winemaker.
1950
In the latter part of 1950, Schubert was sent to Europe to investigate winemaking practices in Spain & Portugal. On a side trip to Bordeaux, Schubert was inspired and impressed by the French cellared-style wines and dreamed of making 'something different and lasting' of his own.
1951
Back in Adelaide, in time for the 1951 vintage, Max Schubert set about looking for appropriate 'raw material' and Shiraz was his grape of choice. Combining traditional Australian techniques, inspiration from Europe and precision winemaking practices developed at Penfolds, Schubert made his first experimental wine in 1951.
1957
Max Schubert was asked to show his efforts in Sydney to top management, invited wine identities and personal friends of the board. To his horror the Grange experiment was universally disliked and Schubert was ordered to shut down the project. What might have been enough to bury Grange in another winemaker's hands, only made Max more determined to succeed.
Late 20th Century
Max continued to craft his Grange vintages in secret, hiding three vintages '57, '58 and '59, in depths of the cellars. Eventually the Penfolds board ordered production of Grange to restart, just in time for the 1960 vintage. From then on, international acknowledgment and awards were bestowed on Grange, including the 1990 vintage of Grange which was named Wine Spectator's Red Wine of the Year in 1995.
Today
Grange's reputation as one of the world's most celebrated wines continues to grow today. On its 50th birthday in 2001, Grange was listed as a South Australian heritage icon, while the 2008 Grange vintage achieved a perfect score of 100 points by two of the world's most influential wine magazines. With every new generation of Penfolds winemakers, Max Schubert's remarkable vision is nurtured and strengthened.
The following text is taken from an article by Ken Gargett in Quill & Pad, https://quillandpad.com
Grange is one of the best-known stories in Australian wine, always worth recapping, especially as a bottle of the very first vintage, 1951, sold at auction last month for AUD$157,624. Not bad for a wine that was never released commercially – it was simply considered an experiment at the time and is apparently only just this side of undrinkable these days.
Grange had an unlikely genesis. Penfolds' head winemaker back in the late 1940s was the legendary Max Schubert. In those days, the market was very much focused on fortifieds, with table wines a distant second. Schubert made several visits to Spain and Portugal to study fortified making, but he had a strong interest in table wines and on the way home he ducked up to Bordeaux for a few days.
Schubert was blown away by what he saw there and returned determined to create an Australian "First Growth." Of course, easier said than done.
The first problem was funding it, though his employers were largely supportive of his experiments provided they did not get in the way of his real work – which in those days was very much on various fortifieds rather than table wines. First Growths tend to be heavily Cabernet Sauvignon dominant with varying amounts of other varieties, especially Merlot. Well, in the late 1940s, early 1950s in Australia, good luck finding much of either, especially Merlot, at the level of quality Schubert required. What we did have, in abundance, was Shiraz. At this stage, Shiraz was dominant even in regions that would become so famous for Cabernet such as Coonawarra.
In addition, First Growths spent time maturing in new French oak. At that stage, American was the oak most commonly found in Australia; there was simply not the quantity or quality of French oak available. So new American it was. While First Growths (indeed, all the top Bordeaux) were from single estates, Australia was all about blending, not only vineyards but regions.
So, the result would be a wine made mostly from Shiraz – only a few Granges over the years have been 100 percent Shiraz, most having a small percentage of Cabernet. It would be sourced from a wide range of regions and matured in new American oak. It has ever been thus.
So nothing at all like a First Growth then, but it started a line of wines that have long been generally considered as Australia’s finest. Personal preference might take one elsewhere and there are a number of exceptional contenders. But Grange has the runs on the board.
The first Grange, an experimental wine, was the 1951 and Penfolds has never missed a vintage since then. The first intended for commercial release was the 1952. Schubert’s intention was a wine that could match great Bordeaux in aging ability, so it was into the cellar with the first vintages for as long as he could get away with. After some years, he finally brought them out for a tasting for the Penfolds hierarchy (Penfolds headquarters was situated half a continent away in Sydney so the daily goings-on at Magill were of little interest). But as Schubert said, that hierarchy had become "increasingly aware of the large amount of money lying idle in their underground cellars at Magill."
To say the unveiling was a disaster of near Biblical proportions would be an understatement. The wines were hated, even ridiculed.
Schubert was devastated. He was inordinately proud of these wines, believing them to be exceptional. The tasting included vintages 1951 to 1956. The wines were treated with contempt. One well-known expert's assessment was, "Schubert, I congratulate you. A very good, dry port, which no one in their right mind will buy, let alone drink." Another compared them to "crushed ants."
Yet another thought he’d take advantage of the situation and offered to take a few dozen off Schubert's hands, but he expected them for free as he thought them not worth any money. One wanted some for use as an aphrodisiac, believing the wine to be like bull’s blood, hence something that would, "raise his blood count to twice the norm when the occasion demanded." A young doctor requested some as an anesthetic for his girlfriend (the mind boggles as to why this was required – and given his position as a doctor, why he did not have access to something more suitable).
It is worth noting that wines like 1952, 1953, and 1955 are now considered to be some of the greatest ever made in Australia. The 1951 is now little more than a curio and I doubt anyone is paying AUD$150,000 for the pleasure of drinking it. It is for collectors only.
After the debacle, the order came from Sydney: "Cease production."
Despite knowing full well that defiance of such instructions would end his career, Schubert was so convinced as to the ultimate quality of these wines that he ignored the directive. From 1957, he made the wines in secret. Of course, this meant that he could not add the usual quantities of new oak to the budget among other things – there is only so much you can hide from bean counters, even long distance. But the wines were made and hidden away in the depths of the cellars under false names and records. This gave us the "hidden Granges" of 1957, 1958, and 1959.
At the time Penfolds still had stocks of the early Granges and little idea what to do with them. Schubert entered them in shows – wine shows are very important to the Australian wine industry. Not surprisingly, they started to not only win medals but to dominate the shows. Naturally, this caught the eye of the hierarchy, and the decision was made to reverse the earlier edict. Schubert was instructed to recommence production. I can find no record of the reaction by the Penfolds board when it discovered that he’d never stopped, but I would love to have been the proverbial fly on the wall.
About the winery
After the success of early sherries and fortified wines, founders Dr Christopher and Mary Penfold planted the vine cuttings they had carried on their voyage over to Australia. In 1844 the fledging vineyard was officially established as the Penfolds wine company at Magill Estate.
As the company grew, so too did Dr Penfold's medical reputation, leaving much of the running of the winery to Mary Penfold. Early forays into Clarets and Rieslings proved increasingly popular, and on Christopher's death in 1870, Mary assumed total responsibility for the winery. Mary's reign at the helm of Penfolds saw years of determination and endeavour.
By the time Mary Penfold retired in 1884 (ceding management to her daughter, Georgina) Penfolds was producing 1/3 of all South Australia's wine. She'd set an agenda that continues today, experimenting with new methods in wine production. By Mary's death in 1896, the Penfolds legacy was well on its way to fruition. By 1907, Penfolds had become South Australia's largest winery.
In 1948, history was made again as Max Schubert became the company's first Chief Winemaker. A loyal company man and true innovator, Schubert would propel Penfolds onto the global stage with his experimentation of long-lasting wines - the creation of Penfolds Grange in the 1950s.
In 1959 (while Schubert was perfecting his Grange experiment in secret), the tradition of 'bin wines' began. The first, a Shiraz wine with the grapes of the company's own Barossa Valley vineyards was simply named after the storage area of the cellars where it is aged. And so Kalimna Bin 28 becomes the first official Penfolds Bin number wine.
In 1960, the Penfolds board instructed Max Schubert to officially re-start production on Grange. His determination and the quality of the aged wine had won them over.
Soon, the medals began flowing and Grange quickly became one of the most revered wines around the world. In 1988 Schubert was named Decanter Magazine's Man of the Year, and on the 50th anniversary of its birth, Penfolds Grange was given a heritage listing in South Australia.
Despite great success, Penfolds never rests on its laurels. In 2012 Penfolds released its most innovative project to date - 12 handcrafted ampoules of the rare 2004 Kalimna Block Cabernet Sauvignon.
Two years later, Penfolds celebrated the 170th anniversary – having just picked up a perfect score of 100 for the 2008 Grange in two of the world's most influential wine magazines. Today, Penfolds continues to hold dear the philosophies and legends – '1844 to evermore!'.
South Australia
South Australian is responsible for more than half the production of all Australian wine. It is home to more than 900 wineries across 18 wine regions. The regions are Adelaide Hills, Adelaide Plains, Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Coonawarra, Currency Creek, Eden Valley, Kangaroo Island, Langhorne Creek, McLaren Vale, Mount Benson, Mount Gambier, Padthaway, Riverland, Robe, Southern Fleurieu, Southern Flinders Ranges and Wrattonbully.
Many of the well-known names in the South Australian wine industry established their first vineyards in the late 1830s and early 1840s. The first vines in McLaren Vale were planted at Reynella in 1839 and Penfold's established Magill Estate on the outskirts of Adelaide in 1844.
South Australia has a vast diversity in geography and climate which allows the State to be able to produce a range of grape varieties - from cool climate Riesling in the Clare and Eden Vallies to the big, full bodied Shiraz wines of the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale. Two of Australia's best-known wines, Penfolds Grange and Henschke Hill of Grace, are produced here. There is much to discover in South Australia for the wine lover.