Same grower, same vineyard, same wines - different vintages...
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[Drinking] The Fridat drinks thread
- Thread starter Herr Tubthumper
- Start date
Same grower, same vineyard, same wines - different vintages...
Yeah, f*ck dark currants and pencil shavings.
You were tasting/drinking a number of different vintage Penfolds Grange? I’ve yet to try one, I keep looking at them in our local Bottle O, but have yet to be ballsy enough to stump up the money. There is a sister wine, Bin 389 or the like, which runs out at about $150 a bottle, think I might lay a number of those down sometime soon.
Yeah, we had 6 different vintages.
389 is, imo, often a very good wine. It is referred to by some as ‘Baby Grange’, which has always struck me as both inaccurate (as 389 is typically c50/50 cab sauv and shiraz, whereas Grange is near as damn it 100% shiraz) and disparaging.
If you like the house style - muscular, intense, and big - by all means get some 389. If you buy younger vintages (anything starting with a 2) be prepared to wait until it’s a minimum of 20 years’ old before drinking them.
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Very, very jealous.
I tried a glass around 19 years ago while living in Sydney. Some of the older guys on my project who were on massive expenses were into buying Grange and we had a party where a couple of bottles were opened when someone left to go home. Everything else after it tasted like crap but it was still wasted on me at that age. I don't really have words to describe it.
In fact I'd forgotten all about until a friend got me "Raw Spirit" by Iain Banks for Christmas, which I read in the first proper lockdown. It's about him driving all round Scotland in flash cars to visit distilleries and trying to come up with the ultimate single malt. However, there's a chapter where he talks about wine in particular and Grange specificaly, which was his favouriite. Obviously minted at that point in his life with the success of all his books, so he was able to order it regularly but said it never, ever disappointed.
Hope you had a good time - I'm sure you did.
I took it easy last night as heading to a mate's for the game and dinner today. We'll crack a good Shiraz or two but it won't be Grange
- Thread starter
- #48
This might be a dumb question but how does this work? Do you line up a glass of each, chronologically, and work your way through them? Which end do you start at? Or is it a bottle at a time?
Different strokes for different folks. We line up a glass of each and then taste from worst rating to best rating. Then drink them in the order we fancy.