1983 Penfolds Grange

Community Tasting Notes (80) Avg Score: 94.7 points

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  5/1/2024 - chatters wrote:

  First Wednesday Wine Club (Bella Puglia, Five Dock): Served blind
  Ripe, red cherry, sweet spice shows nutmeg, vanilla, blackberry. Medium plus intensity acidity, fruit tea, slightly herbaceous notes, cherry, berry, grippy drying tannins, fruit doesn't persist past these, plenty of alcohol warmth on the finish. It's all a bit clumsy.
  I thought this might be an Australian Sangiovese with a little age. Face Plant #2

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  3/16/2024 - Cremuel wrote: 94 Points

  Bob’s cellar. Only a brief note. Shared with friends over a dinner. Excellent as always. Feel this is going strong but not much room for improvement from here.

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  12/31/2023 - Cailles wrote: 95 Points

  20 Top Wines of the 1983 Vintage: Great bottles of the 1983 Grange can drink close to perfection these days. This bottle never fully got there. Upon opening it was closed and muted and even showed signs of age, with 6+ hours in the decanter it got better and better but never reached the absolute heights of the best bottle I’ve had a year ago (rated 99pts), which had a touch higher purity, weightlessness, and more pronounced pure, Chambolle-like red fruit. Still, this was an excellent bottle.
  
  TN: This Grange exhibits a vibrant array of aromas - intense and multi-layered from the nose, across the palate, to a prolonged, expansive finish. It offers a striking contrast to the 1983 Dominus/Opus, also tasted. The profile includes bright red berries, darker fruits, and an abundance of spices and herbs. It's the most mature 1983 Grange I've encountered, with aging notes seamlessly melded into the profusion of other scents. The structure is finely tannic, complemented by excellent freshness. Its texture is more velvet-like than satin, with substantial yet not overwhelming density and weight. The balance and harmony are impressive.
  
  Decanting: Extensive aeration is key - a minimum of 6-7 hours in a decanter brings out its full potential.

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  11/25/2023 - G_H wrote: 96 Points

  40 years on: A global 1983 retrospective: Plums, raspberries, spices, nice acidity. Very good but not one of the best examples.
  
  This needs extensive time in the decanter. I'd recommend 6+ hours.

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  11/25/2023 - sirpat00 wrote: 95 Points

  1983 vintage horizontal with >20 wines, mostly from Bordeaux. Key observations: 1/ Acceptable vintage for Champagne with DP over-delivering, 2/ Laville Haut Brion is a masterpiece among the whites, 3/ Bordeaux is going strong at 40 years of age with stand-outs Latour and Margaux. 4/ No need to chase any Napa’s from the vintage, 5/ off-piste Italians kept up impressively with Soldera an undisputed medalist.
  
  Tasting note:
  Decanted for 6h. Intense, sweet and sexy with Asian spice and gingerbread, black berry and bramble berry fruit. Juicy and well structured palate . Extremely enticing and another great bottle, but not quite at the stellar level like the previous one – I know there is even more possible with this one!

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