THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
dreams, they are regarded by many as pioneering visionaries. Jean would return to France after being diagnosed with leukaemia in 1975 and die there in 1976. The vineyard La Provence would eventually be changed to Providence and is now considered by many as one of Tasmania’s most distinguished sites. . . . In 1957, Max Schubert was asked to show his efforts in Sydney to top management, invited wine identities, and personal friends of the Penfolds board. To his mortification, the Grange experiment was universally disliked. Subsequent tastings in Adelaide resulted in further negative opinions. One critic stated, ‘Schubert, I congratulate you. A very good, dry port, which no one in their right mind will buy – let alone drink.’ Gladys Penfold Hyland, autocratic chair of the board, finally ordered Schubert to stop making Grange. As Huon Hooke wrote in Max Schubert, Winemaker , ‘[s]tocky in build, but generally dressed in beautifully tailored suits’, she ruled the family business with an iron rod. Defiance of such an order meant certain dismissal and severe loss of face. Embarrassed, angry, and dejected, Max Schubert’s ambitions to make a great wine that Australians would be proud of were completely destroyed. Experimental Grange vintages, already bottled and binned, would soon be sold off to clubs as house wine. He was ordered to dispose of the remaining stock by blending it away into oblivion. At this point, Grange was dead.
‘Schubert, I congratulate you. A very good, dry port, which no one in their right mind will buy – let alone drink.’ – An unnamed wine expert in Sydney, 1957, on Grange, as reported by Max Schubert
. . . It was the happenstance of distance between senior management in Sydney and winemakers in Adelaide, 1,400 kilometres apart, that saved Grange from imminent doom. After Max Schubert’s run-in with Penfolds senior management, his Grange Hermitage project went underground, with the tacit approval of Jeffrey Penfold Hyland and the support of the Penfolds winemaking team. The hogsheads, full of Grange vintages, were hidden in the drives at Magill and away from the prying eyes of visiting managers or members of the Penfolds family. The 1957, 1958, and 1959 Penfolds Grange were all stored and stashed away in secret.
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