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Wine Description
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 consistent of the world’s great wines. The Grange style is the original and most powerful expression of Penfolds multi-vineyard, multi-district, blending philosophy.
Wine Information
1965 Grange Hermitage Bin 95 Penfolds (Australia)
The 1965 Grange won the coveted Jimmy Watson Trophy, awarded to the best one-year-old red at the Melbourne Wine Show, in 1966. It also won two more gold and six other medals between 1966 and 1973. This 1965 Grange is a blend of 95% Shiraz and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Excellent condition and level was by the neck. Decanted for three hours. Evolved color with orange trim. Fresh and exotic sweet fruit on the nose. But the taste was unexpectedly one-dimensional and boring. I probably decanted it too early and now it was simply too alcoholic, hot and unkind wine with a nasty, sharp aftertaste.
The second bottle was decanted only 15 minutes before tasting and was happily much more alive and had better fruit and structure than the first one. Unfortunately this also started to fade very rapidly in the glass. But those first 30 minutes were splendid; it displayed lovely, ripe and vigorous fruit with soft and gentle tannins. Great balance and good depth. This was not one of those muscular Granges, which they all seem to be today. 1965 was a surprisingly elegant and sweet wine, but no more than the first 30 minutes. Drink up - fast!
Vintage 1965
Australia / Above average growing season rainfall was followed by a warm, dry vintage leading to good yields and high quality wines – especially reds which were a lighter, more elegant style.
In 1965 there were 7,287 hectares of vineyards in Barossa and 35,820 tonnes of wine grapes were crushed in that vintage.
Viticulturally this was a poor fruit set year for Grenache and growers also faced a downy mildew threat in December 1964 and again on January 4 when “oil spots” appeared after a prolonged dew.
Dam building was promoted as an alternative to wells and bores for irrigation. Undervine weed control, through mechanical cultivation and early herbicide use, was being promoted to boost moisture retention.
Concerns were also being registered about the potential for metal contamination from grape trays used for delivering loads.
Following years of wine promotion, the “red wine boom” began in Australia and between 1964/65 and 1969/70 red wine consumption would leap by 150% from 9.58 million litres to 25.47 million litres.
Barossa wineries continued to introduce new technology with Orlando commissioning the first McKenzie four stage continuous press, MAC static drainers and carbon dioxide drainers in 1965.
Penfolds introduced the first “bag in a box” – a metal container with a polythene liner but sealing problems meant that it failed to gain acceptance.
“Killer” yeasts were also recognised for the first time.