The Auswine Forum

just saw this.

The 2008 vintage of the prestigious Penfolds Grange will be released globally on Thursday, but it has already become a plaything of cut-price online sites.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/executive-styl ... z2RpOUvg2J


cheers
Phill

$750 here in nz from retailers that have chosen to advertise. Some seem to be playing a wait and see game and haven't advertised. Some just are not stocking it.

My view is that it will take quite a few years yet to be able to accurately judge the 2008 as a primo vintage that cellars well.
This 2008 wine and pricing is competing against vintaged Grange from premium years that can be purchased at auction at very significant discounts to the 2008 pricing (why wait ?).

My local store has the 08 at $643 ( it dropped around $100 or more on Thursday) and they have a 05 and a 1995 at $499, all a bit rich for me and I dont know what the 05 and 95 vintages were like but if I was going to buy any I would want to drink it rather than cellar it so the older wine is probably the one I would buy.

The grange , rwt and st henri was on tasting today, went down there queue up for a ticket (only 50 available). they were serve in a little plastic cup , bottle wasn't opened until they starting to pour into the cup. fill up about half of the little cup, looks alot but may 1 mouth full.

Grange was the first one i tasted, not much aroma coming out from the little cup( the plastic cup does have a little smell), i walk off to somewhere with more space and less people and waited for another 10 mins. for the wine to open up. my first sip didn't give me much, dark fruity berries,a little bit like syrup texture, a long finish and after taste.

RWT is the one i like most out of the 3, more aroma coming out to begin with, dark fruit , got a feeling this is more rich than grange.i took a second taste for the rwt because i thought the grange on the first cup probably still in my mouth somewhere.lol.
very similar results but a little bit more oaky and smoky flavor.

St henri. the truth, i don't really know what it taste like after the first 3 cups, porbably more red fruit than dark fruits. i'm not sure if it is the little plastic cup that makes all 3 of these wines looks very much alike. all 3 are dark purplish.

End of the tasting, the ones that got their tickets early left the store very quickly and others haven't tasted actually bought some bottles.

Interesting, Willoughby had ISO's.

Agree the RWT was showing the best at its current age with pop and pour. Grange needed more air to be able to make any call.

There was also 707 and 407 for tasting. The 707 showed very well too.

407 was drinkable but not worth $69 bucks. I'd pay $30. Actually I'd probably just buy a Black Label.

the 707 2010 wasn't there for us to taste, its not even in the store/website to buy, don't know what happen to it. the 407 was $49.99 on the day

I saw some Twitter discussion regarding TWE's denial that Dan's even had the 707! So for the record..... (yeah I know it might show sideways, I hate photobucket for that)

I tried the new Grange on Saturday... proper glass but only a tiny, tiny sample... The nose is quite attractive now but the palate will take years to resolve, undrinkable today. Its certainly very good, and will age well. More than $700? Hmmm Ill take a case of 389 instead if I was to do either.

Hadn't seen this link post yet: http://www.goodfood.com.au/good-food/dr ... 2iucw.html

Jenni Port, Nick Stock and Ralph Kyte Powell comment on whether they would buy 2008 Grange. In short, no, money better spent on other wines.

Some fair comments as well from Huon Hooke's latest newsletter:

"The 2008 vintage of Penfolds’ flagship red wine, Grange Shiraz, was released on May 2 with more hullabaloo than usual (tasting notes). Two main reasons: the price has leapt 25 per cent in one jump, and the US-based newsletter Wine Advocate rated it an absurd 100/100 (and the judgment was not that of Robert Parker, as some said, but Lisa Perotti-Brown, who covers Australia for Wine Advocate).

I say absurd, because I don’t believe in ‘perfect’ wines, or perfect scores; I have never rated any wine 100 points myself, and I simply ask what score these reviewers would give the wine when it’s fully mature and singing at its best – in about 15 to 20 years.

It will be a far better wine then. It’s too young to drink now, and while it looks to have the potential to rank alongside the greatest Granges (tastings), it’s very difficult to say at this early stage just how good it will eventually be.

So, how good is the 2008?


It’s a great wine, no reservations. I would place it in the top echelon of Grange vintages, perhaps not as great as the ’06 (tasting) or ’96 (tasting), but right up near them.

The two greatest vintages are 1953 (tasting) and 1963 (tasting), and we can evaluate them properly now because they’re fully mature. Vintages go up and down slightly during their lifetimes, and we can only truly judge great aging wines when they’re fully mature. But I would certainly be confident backing the ’08.

My one reservation is that it’s still an old-fashioned style of red wine. Yes, Penfolds (tastings) winemakers, led by chief Peter Gago, have modernized Grange slightly in recent times, and I think it’s better than ever when tasted as a young wine.

It’s less oaky and the quality of the tannins is finer. But it looks increasingly like a dinosaur tasted beside cutting-edge modern Australian shirazes. Certainly, Mount Langi Ghiran (tastings) and Clonakilla (tastings), two great modern Australian cool-climate shirazes, are quite opposed in style to Grange - which is no skin off Grange’s nose. It’s a great wine of its type. But I don’t believe it really delivers its goods till it’s at least 20 years old.

The other thing is that it’s not a wine of terroir, which is the fashion these days. It’s a blend of regions and vineyards, and is more about house-style than vineyard or regional character.

Is it worth $785? That is, 25 per cent more than the previous vintage? Not to me. But it depends how much money is in your pocket. No wine is intrinsically worth that sort of price.

However, at the “luxury, collectable” apex of the wine market, price is about many things apart from what’s inside the bottle, and Grange is merely keeping up with the rest of the world in that regard.

The madness of luxury wine pricing is everywhere now, and it’s not going to change any time soon. Smart people identify affordable wines that give them just as much pleasure as the most expensive."

http://huonhooke.tumblr.com/post/497982 ... est-grange

Ddavew wrote:the 707 2010 wasn't there for us to taste, its not even in the store/website to buy, don't know what happen to it. the 407 was $49.99 on the day

Yep they were tasting the 2008 Bin 707.

I saw the new grange at magill for $628 in a 6. And that was the kalimna price also from memory. Was on tasting thus along with all luxuries. Fri sat sun was pay tastings but a few friends headed in and got sneaky free pours of it along with the luxury items that were all on tasting all weekend.
Rwt was awesome and the cabernets were bloody strong imo.
Cheers

Huon Hooke writes complete sense, once again. Not had an opportunity to taste Grange '08. Then again, I have little interest in buying the wine - last vintage purchased was the '99, last drunk the '96.