NobleRottersSydney - Grange night

A full turn-out of nine permanent Rotters – plus one former Rotter – gather to celebrate the final dinner of the group’s 25th anniversary year with the ultimate Australian wine theme – Grange – garnished with a few top-shelf French ring-ins. The drinking order was broadly by anticipated palate weight, which nearly equated to oldest to youngest. Just the two bottles were recently sourced at auction (the 88 & 90), with a 50% success rate; the rest had lain in Rotters’ cellars for many years. All Granges (& the Yquem) were double-decanted a few hours before dinner except the 91, which was done at the table right at the start of the night (about 90mins before drinking).

• 1990 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut Flawed

  France, Champagne

  {cork, 12%} (Geoffrey) A touch cloudy-looking, rich gold in colour. The nose was clearly cheesy and nutty; you might expect this at nearly a quarter-century, but the palate had a distinct flat-spot to it. Is it odd that it could taste oxidised, despite there still being plenty of fine bubbles and some acidity? Weird. It’s like the fruit alone has faded, whereas the rest of the palate is in fine shape. Sadly, this takes the complexity and length of finish with it. I sense here the shell of a very great wine, but it was not to be on this occasion.

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• 2005 Bouchard Père et Fils Chevalier-Montrachet

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru

  {cork, 13.5%} (Ron - guest) Mid-yellow. Gorgeous, developing nose of grilled nuts and mild grapefruit. The medium-bodied palate has a slightly briney, seashell character to the flavours initially, but it mellows out into delicious tropical fruits, tight, fine oak, gentle tannins, seamless texture and long even finish. God, the finish is long and even. Delicious, enchanting chardonnay. This bottle would have run another 5 years easy, we think.

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• 1975 Penfolds Grange

  Australia, South Australia

  {cork, 13.4} (Stephen) Solid garnet, barely fading to brick at the rim. Classic aged Grange aromas of polished leather, tar and bitumen. It’s medium/full-bodied, still with medium powdery-textured fine tannins, great presence, and I would even say power, although it’s not brutish in any way. Probably past its ideal drinking peak, but hanging on very nicely, and stayed delicious in the glass for over an hour. Magnificent. Barossa & Coonawarra fruit. 10% cabernet.

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• 1983 Penfolds Grange

  Australia, South Australia

  {cork, 12.9%} (Gordon) The vintage was marked by droughts, bushfires and floods. An acclaimed, low-alcohol wine is the result. This does smells quite aged yet intense, with much more overt stewed mulberry fruits compared to the purely tertiary aromas of the ’75. It remains fruity on the palate, but is overlaid with more overt smoky oak. This is verging on full-bodied (for 30 years old) , still has strong underlying oak tannins, almost to the point of seeming a bit disjointed. There remains great length on the finish, though, and the whole of the tongue from front to back is tantalised by the aging red fruits. This will likely become more polarising as it ages; might be a Grange where the tannins outlive everything else. On this showing, has another ten years drinking easily. Barossa & Adelaide fruit. 6% cabernet.

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• 1989 Penfolds Grange

  Australia, South Australia

  {cork, 13.5%} (Glenn) We’ve drunk plenty of 89 over the years; it’s proving to be amazingly consistent, and always hugely enjoyable. This bottle continues the trend; it again displays the riotously confected jammy/liquorice nose we’ve come to expect, has delicious chocolate/raisin notes on the medium-bodied palate, with softening powdery tannins, and slightly shorter finish than the other vintages tonight. This must have been the best red made from the tricky 89 vintage in the whole country, and for all that it’s fantastic to drink now (and seemingly for another 5-8 years at least) it’s not very typical of the breed. If the other Granges are brawny muscles in well-fitting suits, this is the acrobat wine wearing the Hawaiian shirt. Barossa & McLaren Vale fruit. 9% cabernet.

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• 1988 Penfolds Grange

  Australia, South Australia

  {cork, 13.5%} (Graeme) Following the 89, this seemed much darker, more serious. Meat/malt and iodine. Remain darkly dense on the palate, with fruit all in the black grape spectrum. Medium/full-bodied, with fine dusty tannins, medium acid and a long even finish. Less overt than the 89, and probably a bit less enjoyable now, but has a longer future. Ought to age another ten years easily on this showing. Classy wine. Barossa, McLaren Vale & Padthaway. 6% cabernet.

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• 1997 Penfolds Grange

  Australia, South Australia

  {cork, 14%} (DavidM) Tossed in to drink before the much-anticipated ‘great vintages’ this was so seemingly youthful that you’d never pick it as 16 years old. Barely developing nose of chocolate, charcoal and big black fruit. The palate is still subsumed by oak, liquorice-tinted fruits, and alcohol, at least in comparison to the more mature vintages here. There are fine medium chalky tannins, and a medium/full-bodied long, powerful finish. Wants another ten years at least. I don’t think there’s been a single subsequent vintage of Grange with alcohol lower than this wine, which is rather alarming when you consider the history of the label. Barossa, McLaren Vale, Bordertown fruit. 4% cabernet.

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• 1990 Penfolds Grange Flawed

  Australia, South Australia

  {cork, 13.5%} (DavidC) This should have vied with the 83 as the wine-of-the-night, but something was wrong here. On its own, you might just think it a bit strange (as opposed to sub-par) and wonder what all the ‘Grange fuss’ is about. Beside its peers tonight, it was clearly faulty in some way. It had a boiled cabbage sort of character on the nose, which cut through the coconut/vanilla aromas. The palate shows fleeting glimpses of a great wine, but there’s no development of fruit, and a finish not much more than medium-length. It’s not overtly corked (TCA), isn’t textbook bretty either although there is something bacterial about it, and I’m not sure that it’s obvious heat-damage. Whatever, it’s not up to scratch. If you had nothing else, it’s drinkable, but it’s not the full monty, that’s for sure. For the record, Barossa, Clare & Coonawarra fruit. 5% cabernet.

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• 1991 Penfolds Grange

  Australia, South Australia

  {cork, 13.5%} (Bruce) Showing all the signs of real development, but with its peak still some way off. Developing aromas of American oak, big red fruit, malt, tar; the usual, in other words. The palate is all about balance. It’s full-bodied, but oh-so-sophisticated. Chocolate, meat and caramel flavours are offered, with fine powdery tannins at just the right level; as is acid, as is alcohol. Wound together as perfectly as a Bach fugue. Absolutely fills the mouth; there don’t seem to be enough nerve endings on the tongue to take it all in. An endless finish to a wine that will drink perfectly for another 20 years, if the 1975 can be believed. Barossa & McLaren Vale. 5% cabernet.

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• 1996 Penfolds Grange

  Australia, South Australia

  {cork, 14%} (Greg) The 96 was very similar to the 91, but with perhaps a sweeter, more sybaritic level of fruitiness on the palate. The nose has a precise purity to the juicy chocolate/blackberry aromas. The palate is immensely seductive; polished, balanced, chalkily tannic and dry, but shot through with sweet red fruit, still stupidly youthful, but just sliding far enough away from their youth to be interesting. Although this is oh-so-drinkable now, it’s clearly only part-way along the path to legendary status. Really, very difficult to describe adequately with words. Barossa, McLaren Vale, Magill. 6% cabernet.

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• 1983 Château d'Yquem

  France, Bordeaux, Sauternais, Sauternes

  {cork} (Gordon) As if all these Granges weren’t decadent enough, this transcendent wine completed the evening. Gold colour. An aged, immensely intense nose of vanilla, marzipan and nougat preceded a palate of ludicrous richness, medium-sweet, but thickly dense with toffee & marmalade. It seemed to have a lactic, woolly thickness to it, softly tannic, but with acid keeping it all together. Medium-bodied, it has an endless finish which never sags or palls, and remains perfectly balanced all the way through. Thirty years old and quite gorgeous. Wow. Just ‘wow’.

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Eight Granges, from 16 to 38 years old – average age 24 years – gave us seven hits and one slight miss. An amazing achievement. And nothing was merely clinging on; they were positively brimming with life. A brilliant dessert wine. A stunning Burgundy. It doesn’t get much better than this. Save the two slight 1990 disappointments. Who’d have picked that? How can the Christmas lunch not be a let-down after this? Well, we’ll just see about that…