It was a Thursday morning in the early 1990s. It happened somewhere rather fancy in Sydney. It was a tasting of every vintage of Penfolds Grange ever made. Hosting the shebang was a mysterious Swede by the name of Anders Josephson: a textile manufacturer and car racing enthusiast who, in an operation that had much of the flavour and style of an undercover sting, had assembled perhaps the greatest collection of Australian wine ever seen. His business model was to buy big, cellar and re-sell back into the trade, with margin. It didn’t last particularly long, but perhaps his greatest achievement was to recalibrate the price of high-end of Australian wine, with the side-effect of increasing the price of Grange tenfold. Penfolds should build a statue to him. As indeed might Steve Henschke.
We started with the older wines. The 1951 trial wine was in the lineup, and it was interesting. I’ve tasted it a few times and it’s obvious why it was never released as the first in the series. Next up, the first real Grange – the 1952 – was sublime. But it was nowhere near the 1953.
Permit me to divert you a moment. After the 1952 Grange was released, it and other early Granges copped a shellacking from Australian drinkers, critics and trade; which is to put it mildly. In 1956, surrounded by Penfolds board members and having tasted the first six vintages of the wine, a well-known and respected critic of the day congratulated legendary winemaker Max Schubert on his ‘very good dry port, which no-one in their right mind would buy, let alone drink’. Instead of backing their man, Penfolds officially ditched his wine. Despite this, and supported by a Penfolds family insider, Max Schubert continued to make Grange for three years without his employer having a clue. And then, once it shot the lights out of the Australian wine show circuit in 1960, Penfolds bravely authorised resumption of its official production.
These were the thoughts bouncing around my head as I tasted one of the most thrilling Australian wines of my life, of which Penfolds can lay claim to a few, being the 1953 Grange Cabernet, the 1962 and 1966 Granges, the 1962 Bin 60A and the 1967 Bin 7. Plus the Block 42 from 2004 and others…
So here I was, tasting the 1953 Grange, a wine which on release was not only considered unworthy to wear the Penfolds label, but was one of a series of vintages rated so poorly that its label was tried, convicted and sentenced for execution. Before it was saved by a miracle. Yet, without any question, it was the finest, most alluring, complex and layered Australian wine I had then experienced; at around 40 years of age still laced with cedar and cigarboxes, truffles and violets. Its structure was fine but still very much intact. Its perfume and presence were nothing short of ethereal.
I’d been fortunate to engage Max Schubert in conversation a few times and was always struck by his friendliness and humility. That was also inside my head as I tasted this perfect wine of his that exploded my knowledge and experience; knowing all the while it had been shunned by the media, the market and finally by his employer. I shall never, ever forget that moment and without a shard of shame or embarrassment I’ll fess up right now that I had more than a single tear in my eye.
Fast forward to last Friday. For then I experienced what I can only describe as a flashback while tasting another Barossa shiraz. Well, I had only sniffed it by at this time, but there I was, transported straight back to that moment in the early 1990s. I was experiencing what only a sensory recollection can provide, because for all intents and purposes I was back in Sydney tasting that 1953 Grange. And, quite involuntarily, my eyes had also misted over, for the second time in my life, over a wine.
What was this wine? One I’m happy to describe as the successor to the 1953 Grange – the Neldner Road Kraehe Shiraz 2021 by Dave Powell. A wine he agrees with me is the best he’s ever made. And it’s a wine you’re going to have to experience if you want to understand how good great Australian wine can be. At around $750 per bottle it’s not an everyday drink unless perhaps you have invented a currency, but that’s the way it is. And you can never, ever blame a wine for its price.
It’s challenging to imagine a more complete, complex, perfumed and seamless wine than this Kraehe. As with all truly great wines, its bouquet, flavour profile and texture constantly modify with breathing and time in the glass. Delivering an almost paradoxical combination of intensity, elegance and seamlessness, it’s certainly at the more refined and restrained extremity of the Dave Powell spectrum.
However, it’s unquestionably a northern Barossa wine that flaunts its Marananga origins. Given the unique qualities of its oak and the close to perfect nature of the 2021 Barossa vintage, it unfolds a smoky, cedary aspect that will certainly become cigarboxy with time, together with a purity and precision of dark cherry, berry and plum-like fruit that will retain brightness for decades. To that you can add nuances of roasting chestnuts, Moroccan spices, old Puer tea and briar, plus a tight, drying backbone that becomes more mineral with aeration. You can cellar it for as long as you want and read my full tasting note here.
While I was completely caught off guard with the flashback to the 1953 Grange, I’m not about to suggest the two wines share precisely the same pedigree. The 1953 Grange included 12.8% cabernet sauvignon and was sourced from Magill Estate and Morphett Vale (Adelaide) as well as the historic Kalimna Vineyard (northern Barossa Valley). It was aged in 100% new but seasoned American oak. The 2021 Kraehe is 100% shiraz from a northern Barossa vineyard planted on red ironstone-rich clays near Marananga, about 5-6km southwest of the Kalimna Vineyard as the crow flies. The site has been farmed by Powell since 1994 and its wine is matured in air-dried casks of French oak, of a mix of ages, but of double usual thickness.
Both wines were made by elite makers at the top of their art. I have long rated Dave Powell as one of this country’s finest winemakers and Max Schubert thoroughly deserves his legendary status. While it’s been some time since Max has been available for interview, Powell is emphatic that the 2021 Kraehe basically made itself. ‘If was such a perfect vintage we didn’t have to do anything special or even think about it’ he says. When I hear makers of great wines say stuff like that I try hard not to laugh a little. Like the most gifted of painters, it’s only the greatest of winemakers who know when not to add another line, another colour, another texture. You could argue that Powell confirms his status with that kind of remark, provided of course his wine measures up…
And now to the bit I don’t enjoy so much, because these days people remember numbers much more than they do comments or feelings. You can spend an hour working on a single tasting note, but if you’re giving a very high – or indeed very low – rating, you might as well not bother. So here goes.
I would only have been around the age of 30 when I first tasted that 1953 Grange. And I lacked both courage and the experience back then to give it a perfect score. It took a lunch and dinner with a friend in Hong Kong two decades later to cure me of that, but that’s for another day.
A little older and hopefully a little wiser, I’m not about to make the same mistake with the 2021 Kraehe. I’ve never before given 100 points out of 100 for a current vintage Australian red wine, and right now I’m doing it with absolute certainty.
How about the 1953 Grange? Well, I’ve just played the card called benefit of hindsight and rectified my 30-plus year mistake on the Oliver’s Wines platform.
