Penfolds Grange 'Bin 95' 2020 (750ml)

Grange is often called Australia’s greatest wine, and its story is one of persistence. Penfolds was founded in 1844 by Dr. Christopher Rawson Penfold at Magill, on the edge of Adelaide. More than a century later, in 1950, chief winemaker Max Schubert returned from a trip to Bordeaux determined to create a long-lived Australian red. His first experimental Grange, made in 1951, was dismissed by critics, and the company ordered him to stop. Schubert kept making it in secret, and in time the wine proved itself, becoming the flagship of Penfolds and earning official status as a Heritage Icon of South Australia. Grange is still made by blending the finest Shiraz from several vineyards and regions, so each vintage expresses South Australia as a whole rather than a single site. For 2020, Penfolds’ 180th anniversary year, the blend is 97% Shiraz and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon. The fruit came from McLaren Vale (48%), the Barossa Valley (40%) and the Clare Valley (12%), and the wine matured for 20 months in new American oak hogsheads. It was a dry, demanding season marked by frost and very low yields, and Penfolds did not release several of its other top reds that year. The fruit that did come in had striking concentration, producing a dense, powerful Grange built to age for decades.