The Auswine Forum

I beleive the annual release of the premium Penfolds range are due on 1st May at Magill Estate. Has anyone lined up, particularly overnight? Has anyone tasted the St Henri 2001? If so, any good?

Anyone that lines up for anything has too much time on their hands

Anyone that even considers lining up overnight for a bottle of wine is sick in the head.

Anyone that even mildly contemplates lining up for overpriced Penfolds super premiums is beyond the help of even the best of counsel.

Spare me days, I am glad to see there are even more advanced forms of the disease than having your own wine website and believing in the 10000 point wine scoring system.

C

Craig(NZ). wrote:Anyone that lines up for anything has too much time on their hands

Anyone that even considers lining up overnight for a bottle of wine is sick in the head.

Anyone that even mildly contemplates lining up for overpriced Penfolds super premiums is beyond the help of even the best of counsel.

Spare me days, I am glad to see there are even more advanced forms of the disease than having your own wine website and believing in the 10000 point wine scoring system.

C

Craig

I lined up for the Wine NZ show a few weeks ago - though not overnight. I did think about the tasting overnight though.

Tasted a few wines that I would consider buying and tasted some overpriced wines that I wouldn't waste my hard earned on.

It's all a matter of what the buyer likes, how much they are prepared to spend and whether there is better value for their money elsewhere.

Graham

I think what starts to be a turn-off is the over-hyping of Penfolds, which may not interest us lot too much, but is of interest to collectors/investors/lovers of status symbols. Much of the anger is probably because we DO like the wines, but they no longer offer the value they used to.

Penfolds is far from the only culprit (I'm sure the US have worse examples & France certainly has a very well established level of hype). It's clever marketing & may well end up as a high value tourist draw...

Ian

I was up at Magill Estate last Saturday for a Masterclass (notes to come later this week) and found out a couple of interesting things.

I've never lined up May 1st, but found out that last year over a hundred people camped there from midnight at the cellar door, and well over half missed out on the 1999 Grange. From the 1998 vintage onwards the CD only sold a token amount (a couple of cases) for the May 1st television bulletins - the only chance to buy it through CD now is to ring well in advance and pay a substantial deposit to (maybe) have one on hold.

Penfolds are already indicating there will be a futures system for the 2004 Bin 60A (and probably the 2004 Block 42), with retailers having to pay now to secure an allocation. Half will be bottled under screwcap, and half under cork with preferences taken on order.

Cheers
Ian

Whilst I dont beleive that Penfolds wines should be a dollar dearer than they alrerady are I can say that there are far more overpriced wines for their quility. Everyones biggest argument against them is that they are not in the same quility they used to be post 96 but 96 was a super vintage that we probly havent seen since and 96 was over 9 years ago.My bet is the 02's in 2011 will be a bloody good drop and so will the 99's in a few more years. The 98's? I could be wrong but i beleive they are so good that they need another 5-10 years extra time over any other vintage before they get towards their best but then again i like the look of them now. The 97 and 00 are hard to find GREAT wines from any maker in Barrossa there are but a few. The 01 could turn but i doubt it though it was never going to be a 96 even on paper and what was happening with Penfolds winemakers about then? Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Time changes everything, eh? In 1995 I was able to ring up the cellar door from Sydney and order a dozen 1990 Grange at $120 a bottle.

Of course I tried that again the following year for the 91's and couldn't get a bottle despite my previous purchases. I guess the '90 jumping up to $500 a bottle in three months or so didn't help things at all.

Still have them all and waiting patiently to try my first bottle.

Look at the property market it could have gone up 5% for 8 years but no it jumped that 40% in about one year. Some things are strange like that.