71 Two of a Kind

from Cove magazine

by Cove Magazine

Stars

TWO OF A KIND

Penfolds Grange and Henschke Hill of Grace are two of Australia’s most collected and revered wines.

WORDS TONY HARPER

DID ANYONE MISS the bottle of 1951 Penfolds Grange selling for $142,000?

If you did, you probably had the news turned off for a few days.

It doesn’t quite reach the dizzy heights of the most paid for a wine at auction: 1945 Domaine de la Romanee Conti La Romanee Conti, for example, fetched more than twice that price in 2018, 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild (ok, it was a three-litre bottle) around $345,000 (USD) way back in 2006.

But it’s a significant milestone for Australian wine, and it puts a rather glaring spotlight on the importance of Penfolds Grange in a global sense.

People like to collect it, and the old stuff, the rare stuff (and 1951 is the first Grange ever made) is – quite literally – worth its weight in gold.

Will the wine taste great? Maybe ….

Let’s all hope so, particularly the buyer who is the price of a decent Mercedes poorer and around 750 millilitres of old, probably okay but possibly awful, wine richer.

No matter what, it gives a marvellous insight into the legacy of Max Schubert and the wine he created.

In 1951, Max was climbing along a limb only he knew existed.

His Grange project was barely tolerated by Penfolds; a company that now heralds the wine.

The 1951 vintage was the first, and there are very few bottles left, then in 1957 he was told to cease his ‘Grange’ experiments altogether.

He continued in secret and his naughty pet project became the stuff of legend.

Seven years later the first Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz was crafted.

Even though it’s different from Penfolds Grange in so many ways and so similar in others – a Ying to Grange’s Yang was born with it.

Today they are the two most collected, talked-about and revered wines in the Australian wine idiom.

And deservedly so.

The similarities are simple. Both are oakaged, South Australian reds made mostly from old vine Shiraz.

Grange, in some years, has a modicum of Cabernet Sauvignon in the mix.

Hill of Grace is always shiraz from a select series of vines.

And that, dear readers, is the pivotal point.

There is no Penfolds Grange vineyard.

There is not even a region assigned to the wine.

The heart of Grange is the Kalimna Vineyard in the Barossa Valley, but it is always blended with grapes from further afield – sometimes Coonawarra, sometimes Clare, or Padthaway, or McLaren Vale.

Which gives Penfolds an enviable freedom to source grapes from myriad special vineyards in South Australia to negate the weakness or reinforce the strengths of the season and maintain the quality and style of its flagship wine.

Hill of Grace, on the other hand, is the name of both an Eden Valley vineyard (planted and still owned by the Henschke family) and a wine.

It’s a relatively small vineyard – eight hectares, purchased if you can believe it, for one pound an acre in 1838 before being bought by Gotthard Henschke in 1891.

Half of the vineyard is planted to shiraz – all ungrafted – and only the oldest blocks go into the Hill of Grace wines.

It’s a finite production, susceptible to the vagaries of each and every vintage, and a direct expression of variety and a small, venerable site.

In some challenging years (1960, 1974, 2000 and 2011) no Henschke Hill of Grace has been released.

In others, like 2003, only a tiny parcel was made.

That’s the cost of the Henschke family’s unyielding dedication to quality, and their love for this special vineyard.

The oldest Shiraz vines on the Hill of Grace property date back to 1860, which kind of puts the ‘old vine’ claim into perspective.

These are very old vines and with that age comes a natural hand-brake open vigour and yield, a deep, deep root structure, small berries and incredible concentration.

Prue Henschke tends the vines using organic and biodynamic practices, which in turn keeps the vineyard healthy and the vines under less stress.

Max Schubert’s inspiration for the Grange was catalysed during a trip to Bordeaux, where he saw long-lived reds being aged in oak barrels.

Bringing the idea back to Australia he chose Shiraz instead of the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot that dominate the wines of Bordeaux.

And he settled on the more brash American oak, instead of French.

Which makes sense … South Australian Shiraz can be rich and powerful, and when made carefully, with top-notch grapes, it wears that brashness comfortably.

Today Grange spends its elevage in all new American oak hogsheads which impart vanillans, toast and tannins to the wines, and are a major influence on the style and pedigree.

Hill of Grace sees less new oak, and most of the barrels are made from tighter-grained French oak so wood characters are less prominent; less influential on the personality of the wine.

It’s an important distinction given the finer, more perfumed nature of Eden Valley Shiraz which would be overwhelmed by too much new American oak.

And Hill of Grace always flaunts that Eden Valley perfume – high notes that flitter above the brooding density that comes with well-curated old vine fruit.

It’s always lush, powerful, complex, and it always speaks firstly of the plot of land and ancient vines that brought it into being, and secondly of the Henschke style.

Grange perhaps reflects its creators more than any parcel of land: it’s unmistakable a Penfolds wine in its polish and grandeur, prominent oak and abundant, supple tannins. And its unmistakably Grange.

Is one of these Australian icons better than the other?

Not at all. They are both part of our vinous history and both have a place among the great wines of the world.

They are simply different.