The Big Three

 

As time has gone on, the world’s best wines have become luxury commodities.  Such wines are becoming out of the reach of the ‘average’ wine drinker who just wants to try something special, albeit a little more expensive than usual.  Penfolds ‘Grange’ has always been a bit too dear for most wine lovers.  They have to consolidate their resources to buy bottles to share – just to get a taste sometimes.  Mercifully, the other Penfolds wines were more accessible.  However in the late 1990s Penfolds introduced more special wines, and sure enough the prices across the board moved up.  To be fair, the wines are not out of whack against other such highly-rated wines, but buying them makes a dent in the purse or wallet. 

It helps to have friends in the wine trade.  Most years I get invited to taste the Penfolds Luxury and Icon range, and I was lucky to do so this year.  The ‘Big Three’ available were ‘St Henri’ 2012, ‘RWT’ Shiraz 2013 and ‘Grange’ 2011.  The 2012 Penfolds ‘St Henri’ is all about evenness and smooth, unadulterated fruit.  Those who know the wine better saw that 2012 was a perfect year for the wine, with its ripeness, perfectly refined extraction, size, structure and moderate sweetness from well-ripened fruit.  I saw it that way too, but the excitement just wasn’t there to make it special.  

But then the 2013 Penfolds ‘RWT’ Barossa Valley Shiraz is other-worldly.  Sheer richness, sweetness and opulence.  Sleek and super-ripe, the black-fruited Shiraz was matched by the black minerality and iron-earth of the vintage.  This is indeed one of the great vintages, and it's not even an even year!  The decadence of the wine counterpoised to perfection by the structure, power and presence.  I’d fork out my own dollars for this pretty much perfect wine.

 Then the 2011 Penfolds ‘Grange’.  A rare 100% Shiraz wine.  Usually there’s a small amount of Cabernet.  This is always about size, as much as you can cram into the wine without it becoming something else.  2011 was a hard, wet, diseased vintage.  Penfolds ay it isn’t their best Grange for sure.  But they’re adamant it’s the best 2011 South Australian red.  I like that statement.  It’s big wine alright.  And unmistakably Grange with that massiveness and oak.  It just misses out in fruit sweetness and ripe acid vibrancy.  You readers don’t need to bother with it.  Just leave it with me.  I’ll be happy with it.  Some of us have the hard jobs.