THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
Max Schubert sourced shiraz grapes from the Grange Vineyard at Magill and from the privately owned Honeypot Vineyard, planted in 1920 by Samuel Wynn, the founder of Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate, just south of Adelaide, at Morphett Vale. ‘I had already observed’, noted Schubert, ‘that both vineyards produced wines of distinctive varietal flavour and character with a great depth of colour and body weight, and felt that by producing them together, the outstanding characteristics of both vineyards would result in an improved all-round wine eminently suitable for my purpose’. Combining traditional Australian techniques, new ideas from Bordeaux, and precision winemaking practices developed at Penfolds, Max Schubert made his first experimental wine in 1951. The 1951 Bin 1 Grange Hermitage vintage, which was labelled this way when it appeared in the secondary market in 1986, was not widely released because the wine was not what Max Schubert envisioned. He wanted to start with something magnificent. Consequently, all of the wines, in their signature high-shouldered Bordeaux bottle, were binned and did not see the light of day until Tooth’s, the owners of Penfolds from 1976 to 1982, started discounting and selling off museum stock. The 1951 Grange was never intended for the public and was not known outside Penfolds circles until around 1985. A few of these bottles were given away to a close circle of winemakers and friends. When it was first sold at auction in 1986, it achieved $8,611. It continues to break records. Conversely, Mildara’s freak 1951 Bin 21 Shiraz Cabernet is barely remembered. . . .
The basic method adopted opened up a whole new concept of quality dry red production, in that fermentation was strictly controlled over a much more lengthy period than hitherto; maximum extraction was obtained by daily handling and maceration of juice and grape solids. When this had been achieved, the partially fermented wine was separated from the skins and the fermentation was then completed in the [five untreated] new hogsheads, where the wine remained until the time of bottling some 18 months later. The objective was to produce a big, full-bodied wine containing maximum extraction of all the components in the grape material used. – Max Schubert, chief winemaker, Penfolds
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