At the historic Anders Josephson tasting in 1994 of the first four decades of Penfolds Grange my impressions of the 1951 vintage were: ‘Sweet and varnishy, with a walnut, cedar and leathery bouquet, well past its best but just intact, reminiscent of a spirited old cognac. Thin and flat.’ Its depleted and decayed condition didn’t stop a Queensland collector from paying $33,660 for a single bottle of the same wine (an experimental wine that was never really released) at an auction in December conducted by Oddbins in Adelaide. I can’t help from thinking that with that sort of money I could really have bought a bottle to sink my teeth into.
