SophomAuric, Hopefully your trading skills are better than your choice in wines. FYI here are a few tasting notes:
1976 Penfolds Grange Hermitage
South Australia
Tasting Date : 05/08/1998
Tasting Note
Notes Sourced from Southcorp Wines
Regional sources: Kalimna (Barossa Valley), Magill, Barossa Valley & Modbury (Adelaide
Plains)
Grape varieties: 89 per cent Shiraz & 11 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon
Alcohol: 13.9 per cent
Total acids: 5.1 grams per litre
pH: 3.73
Growing season/vintage: Very good with ideal conditions throughout. The warm vintage
resulted in big, rich, concentrated wines.
Comments: The year of the takeover of Penfolds by the brewer, Tooth & Co, ending
three generations of family control. Although 1976 was considered an excellent vintage,
the 1976 Grange won only a bronze and two silver medals in Australian wine shows.
However, rated 98/100 by Robert Parker in 1990. "More in the old style; a good
vintage", said Max Schubert.
Tasting notes: Colour: dense purple-red. Bouquet: pungent aromas; some estery, volatile characters and a ripe mint overlay.
Palate: huge fruit, sweet and minty; very ripe but well-balanced fruit flavour; tannin fairly low, oak in balance. (James Halliday,
National Times, Nov. 1982)
Very big Grange. Huge fruit, rich and minty. Well-balanced oak. Solid tannin. Needs time. (Rewards of Patience, 1st ed., 1985)
Still a trifle adolescent [like you, Sophoboy], but as muscular as a builder's labourer and as poised as a ballet dancer. (Paul Lloyd, Adelaide
Advertiser, 1986)
Mammoth Grange, showing developed "coffee bean" and "leather" characters. Firm, but well-balanced. (Rewards of Patience,
2nd ed., 1990)
Rich, dark hue. Sweet, leathery, meaty, honey and plum bouquet. A monumental wine, grippingly tannic, dense and
concentrated. Very long term. One of the biggest post-Schubert wines, needing food. Drink from 1995 to 2010. (Huon Hooke,
1993)
Intense licorice/coffee-like, meaty bouquet with hints of plum. Highly concentrated palate with densely-packed, meaty, dark
chocolate and licorice-like flavours. Strong but in-balance tannins, fine medium acid and sweetnes of fruit combine to produce a
wine of structure and power with excellent long-term potential. (Rewards of Patience, 3rd ed., 1994)
Mellow, with tannin in balance with other flavours. Still improving. (Ultimate Grange Experience, Nov. 1994)
"Youthful purple/red. Intense and concentrated liquorice/chocolate/berry/truffle aromas with touches of earthiness. Palate is very
powerful with rich plum/chocolate/berry/ liquorice fruit flavours, thick velvety tannin structure and excellent length. Should be a
very long-lived wine. Drink between now and 2015." (Southcorp Wines, The Rewards of Patience, Fourth Edition, March 2000),
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Finished it off with a nice Montecristo #2. |
