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  • Country ranking ?

    153
  • Producer ranking ?

    100
  • Decanting time

    3h
  • When to drink

    now to 2030
  • Food Pairing

    Roasted Turkey

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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate / The 1997 Grange (a blend of 96% Shiraz and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon) looks to be a classic Grange, although slightly softer and more forward than the backward 1996. The saturated purple-colored 1997 offers a gorgeously sweet nose of blackberry liqueur, cherries, camphor, chocolate, plums, and mocha. The wine is opulently-textured, extremely soft, layered, and seductive, with Grange's tell-tale personality well-disp...

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The Story

Grange is arguably Australia’s most celebrated wine and is officially listed as a Heritage Icon of South Australia. Grange boasts an unbroken line of vintages from the experimental 1951 and clearly demonstrates the synergy between Shiraz and the soils and climates of South Australia. Grange utilises fully-ripe, intensely-flavoured and textured Shiraz grapes. The result is a unique Australian style that is now recognised as one of the most cons...

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Wine Information

It took 10 years from the time the first experimental Grange was made before the wine gained general acceptance and the prejudices were overcome.

In 1949 a young Australian wine maker from Penfolds, Max Schubert, was sent to Jerez, Spain to learn the art of making sherry. At the time the voyage between continents was made without haste by ocean liners. On his way back home, as the ship stopped in the harbor of Bordeaux, Max decided to take ...

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Tasting note

color

Brick red and Clear

ending

Long and Lingering

flavors

Cherry, Blackcurrant, Blueberry, Mint, Toasty and Cigar-box

nose

Youthful

taste

Medium tannin, Well-Integrated, Youthful, Medium-bodied, One-dimensional, Fresh and Dry

Written Notes

Medium to full red-purple, still bright after five years, vibrant cherry and plum fruit aromas more than handle the oak on the bouquet; the palate is sumptuous, but not heavy, the cherry and plum flavours tracking the bouquet. The wine has a very long finish, with fine, integrated tannins. Destined to become one of the great Granges.

  • 97p

Mostly Shiraz plus a dash of Cabernet Sauvignon, aged in new American oak. It's very hard to be completely objective when assessing an iconic wine like this. A legend that still sits at the pinnacle of the Australian wine scene, I'd say that Grange is probably worthy of its exalted reputation, and one of several regrets I have is that when I first got bitten by the wine bug in 1993, I didn't buy a couple of cases of the current release (1985, I believe), because I found the £35 price tag prohibitive. Now it's selling at three times this on release, and it can be a problem getting allocations in good vintages -- and it seems that this remarkable 1996 is one of those good vintages. An opaque red/black colour, the exotic nose displays a range of complex aromas, including spice, coffee, olives and menthol. Hugely concentrated and tannic on the palate, with complex berry fruit and spice flavours. There's plenty of oak here, but I wouldn't call this unbalanced. One for the long haul: you could drink this now, but it's quite challenging. Excellent

A deep, crimson red with a dense ruby core.  Immediately engaging, with wafts of nutmeg and ginger amongst notes of blueberry and blackcurrant and a background of well-seasoned savoury oak. The fruit gains in the glass with aeration, when more subtle perfume and chestnut complexities emerge.

Already showing excellent balance within the frame of a beautifully interwoven mesh of dark plum and blackberry fruits with fig and liquorice. Complex fruit and spice flavours sit against a finely focused backdrop of firm but rounded tannins.

Deep crimson. Liquorice/ blueberry/ dark chocolate/ herb garden aromas with some smoky notes. The palate is fruit sweet and concentrated with dark chocolate/ liquorice flavours and fine slinky/ chalky dry tannins. Malty oak characters pervade at the finish. 96% Shiraz 4% Cabernet Sauvignon Kalimna Vineyard (Barossa Valley), Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Bordertown Blend. Late spring rains followed a generally wet winter. Generally dry cool conditions prevailed during October and November. A hot burst of weather arrived during summer but cooler temperatures and a week of rain during February slowed down ripening. A warm dry period followed over vintage.
  • 84p
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Information

Origin

Magill, South Australia

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