1986 Penfolds Grange

Community Tasting Notes (105) Avg Score: 95.5 points

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  2/28/2024 - Mulvk Likes this wine: 97 Points

  Beautiful bottle of wine. Drinking well

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  5/4/2023 - Philip67 Likes this wine: 97 Points

  Hmm my overiding impression is of regret. This is still too young.
  Wonderful depth and structure. Pure linear blueberry fruit, huge focus and power, reminds me of Screaming Eagle. Amazing intensity and depth. There is hedgerow and hints of leather here, tertiary beginning g to come through but they are still in the background, amazingly this is still very primary. Long and complex, can drink with great pleasure now but will be way better in 10 or 20 years.

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  4/27/2023 - Neddy9 Likes this wine: 96 Points

  Brought along by a dear friend to help celebrate my 70th birthday :-)
  What a wine ! At 37 years of age, it was in remarkable condition. Decanted from modest sediment and aired for about an hour. Colour was deep dark red, with a brick edge - looked about 15 years old !!
  The nose was indeed very 'Bordeaux like' in its intensity, showing fine pencil shavings/cedar and concentrated 'blue fruits' character. The palate structure was powerful, yet elegant and svelte. There was little to no pepper and spice evident - just a velvety, long, long and beautifully balanced palate. With food, the tannins were ameliorated and gorgeous, while the last remnants in the glass showed a bit more grip as a wine by itself.
  When red wines get to this serious sort of age, varietal identification can become a lot harder, as was the case here, with some in our group thinking it was indeed a Bordeaux. No wonder Max Schubert got his inspiration for Grange from that region. This was simply a ripper wine, and could be kept for another decade, although it might need the Penfolds re-corking program to help it go that long, as this bottle's cork was showing some brittleness, despite the very good fill level.

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  12/31/2022 - mxpbuy Likes this wine: 97 Points

  Decanted for an hour. I had passed on buying a number of Granges from the 80s based upon some reviews of them through the early 2000s, but that was a mistake, at least for the '86. This wine continued to bloom after decanting. Gorgeous black and red fruits that have just the right amount of ripeness, with touches of sweet Oak, menthol, dried herbs. A seamless wine from start to a long 30 second finish. Near silky smooth.

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  11/30/2022 - winesteward Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Pop and pour. There was a difference of opinion on this wine between myself and JC. He thought it was corked. It was certainly musty but that blew off after some vigorous swirls of the glass. I find most corked wines rather flat, but this was pretty expressive. But then JC has a PhD in oenology. I would like to think I have enough experience to to figure out if a wine is corked or not; although I do admit my sensitivity is lower than others, and it was my bottle, so biases might have come into play.
  
  In any case, here's my take. Bricking at the edge, but still a deep and opaque core. Mint was the first thing when the cork was popped, and then came the mustiness. That blew off after a couple of swirls. Dark roast coffee and vanilla oak on the nose. Quite surprised by that. I was expecting the wood to be fully integrated by now. Rich, full, and dense mouthfeel. Nice that, at least on the palate, the oak is fully integrated. Roast meat, more coffee. Cocoa powder. Initially quite sweet black berry fruit that gives way to much drier flavours. Still pretty tannic. Cleansing acidity at the back end. Very fine sediment. Tremendous length - the sweet blackcurrant coming back again at the very end. No hurry to drink up. Still a lot of life in this.

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