The Auswine Forum

Tried all the Penfolds super premiums at a local instore this morning. heres some brief impressions (qualification: I have much less experience with the super premium Pennies than many, and have no real bias on whether I "should" like these or not):

01 Yattarna: Tightly wound, smoky oak, excellent texture, and some top class fruit peeking through. Excellent.

00 St Henri: Awesomenose, black fruits, fennel/aniseed, blueberry. Palate lets its down a bit, but still very good.

01 Magill Estate: Sweet vanilla coconut nose, quite elegant compared to the rest, might well be good but didnt really get this wine. For $70 I think there are better wines around.

01 RWT: Nice. More savoury, spicy oak, which is cuddling the fruit right now, but there is some nice length here, the liqueur plum and berry fruit doesnt come across as jammy the way some 01's have, and I like this for the cellar. $120? No. $80? Maybe, as a more elegant alternative to Stonewell, Meshach, etc.

01 Bin 707: Spent more time over this than any of the previous wines. Huge inky black, leafy over a tight cassis nose. A huge frame of tannins, the fruit took a while to come through in the glass, it took some time for me to start liking this. But like it I did, as a big fruit driven Cabernet. Again $120 is tough going.

99 Grange: The nose stats out mentholly, fishermans frien like. with time in the glass, theres more smoke and oak spice. The palate shows great fruit intensity, but at the same time is quite balanced, and isnt overoaked, fruit bomb, or anything extreme. Very classy. I'm priced outof this market, but a privelege to try.

Not so impressed with the St Henri or Magill this year, but the others are excellent.

cheers

Andrew

Wizz wrote:00 St Henri: Awesomenose, black fruits, fennel/aniseed, blueberry. Palate lets its down a bit, but still very good.

Not so impressed with the St Henri or Magill this year, but the others are excellent.

Andrew,

Given that St Henri dosnt show well till its about 10 years old, do you think this has the goods to age well?

TORB wrote:

Wizz wrote:00 St Henri: Awesomenose, black fruits, fennel/aniseed, blueberry. Palate lets its down a bit, but still very good.

Not so impressed with the St Henri or Magill this year, but the others are excellent.

Andrew,

Given that St Henri dosnt show well till its about 10 years old, do you think this has the goods to age well?

Hi Ric, apparently the bottle was double decanted the day before, so no issues about the wine not having opened up. I reckon it will keep ten years, but wont be powering along by then. The tannin and acid didnt come through the way they did on the other releases. I'd aim to drink a bit earlier than 10 yrs from now.

Hi Andrew,

I will be very interested to thy this wine. Even 93 which was a bad vintage is drinking really well after 11 years and is not going anywhere in a hurry. Sure its not as good as say 91 or 94, but still a lovely wine.

It will be interesting to see if SC have changed the formula (on this one too) and made it to drinking a bit earlier.

going to the tasting on Tuesday and will post some impressions. Thanks for the notes.

Cheers
Rob

Please do Rob (and everyone else!). Every year when the Pennies stuff comes out there's usually some worthwhile discussion. The 01 Bin releases were interesting this year as everyone had a different view of them, perhaps the super premiums will be the same.

cheers

Andrew

Wizz wrote:Please do Rob (and everyone else!). Every year when the Pennies stuff comes out there's usually some worthwhile discussion. The 01 Bin releases were interesting this year as everyone had a different view of them, perhaps the super premiums will be the same.

cheers

Andrew

Also tried them. Only the vaguest impressions but found the 00 St Henri very disappointing. I would prefer to buy more 99. The RWT was good, without standing out. In contrast, I really liked the Magill - excellent stuff and worth $70. The 707 was an absolute monster with all the goods for 10-25 years in the bottle. And Grange was all you could expect, but not the best VFM. Overall, I thought them a very consistent range, and for the Shirazes, sit reasonably well in the current Barossa pricing hierarchy. The 707 is the exception - I just wish it was cheaper because I'd love to see in a decade, even with all that American oak.

So how much is the 1999 GRANGE retailing in Australia ?

mukesh shah
bordelais fine wines
singapore

On release Grange went for $375-469 depending on where and which bottle shop you went for. The Magnum $1500-1650. Too much for my blood!

Mark

Mark wrote:On release Grange went for $375-469 depending on where and which bottle shop you went for. The Magnum $1500-1650. Too much for my blood!

Mark

Mark,

Will there be a market for the '99 Grange at those prices?

Since the '98 debuted in The States for less than $200 US, and is still available for around $250 US, it's hard to believe US retailers will move much of the '99 if it's priced higher than the secondary market for the '98.

Please understand that, in the $200+ price range, most US wine demand is driven by Mr. Parker's point ratings. Since the '98 got a "99", it moved out fast and continues to see lots of auction action. Unless the '99 gets a similar score, it won't move very fast. For example, the '97 Grange (a very nice wine, BTW) is still available at retail here for about $130 US. The '96 can still be found for around $175 US.

You can easily correlate the prices with Parker's "scores."

TORB wrote:

Wizz wrote:00 St Henri: Awesomenose, black fruits, fennel/Andrew,

Given that St Henri dosnt show well till its about 10 years old, do you think this has the goods to age well?

Ric,

Not Andrew - but as you know I am a big fan of St Henri for more than 40 vintages - but this is NOT a great (or even very good) St Henri. Definitely earlier drinking in style, and tending to drink over the next 5-7 years if you bought it.

Given the huge drop in class from 1998 and at least a half class (and I would say more) drop from the classical 1999, it will be very interesting to see if the increased price will lead to sales halting (aside from restaurants which will love it).

Aside from thevegetal/capsicum style I almost got the impression of overripened grapes (very unusual for St henri), but did not check alcohol content. Not for the cellar, and not for purchase unless the price is dropped by more than 50%....

BTW, Magill was aromatic (criticism from me) and a return to an earlier style after the very good 96, great 98 & very good 99.

Other wines good in their styles: Grange potentially very good indeed but pricing is another matter. Generally forced to agree with Andrew...

fred