Penfolds Grange Shiraz 1955
Penfolds Grange Shiraz 1955
12.6% alcohol, cork, South Australia.
Penfolds Grange Shiraz is listed as a Heritage Icon of South Australia. It boasts an unbroken lineage back to 1951. It is routinely released as a four-year-old. The 1951 Penfolds Grange is an “experimental” release; the 1952 Penfolds Grange is the first commercial release; the 1953 Penfolds Grange is an incredible wine, and this 1955 Penfolds Grange (called Hermitage at the time) is the wine that came, in time, to announce and to build the legend.
1955 Grange was made by the creator of Penfolds Grange, Max Schubert. It became either a, or the, favourite Grange release of Schubert, largely because of its unbelievable quality in the glass but also because it was the wine that came to vindicate his vision.
1955 Grange had a wine show career to end all wine show careers. It won 12 wine show trophies and 52 gold medals.
1955 Penfolds Grange spent only nine months in oak, which is relatively and unusually short in Penfolds Grange oak maturation regime terms.
1955 Penfolds Grange is 12.6% alcohol. This means that the most illustrious release of Grange – the release that put Penfolds Grange on the map – spent only nine months in oak, and is only 12.6% alcohol.
This specific Penfolds Grange 1955 is made using a blend of 90 percent shiraz and 10 percent cabernet sauvignon.
Grapes for the 1955 Penfolds Grange were grown in the Barossa Valley (Kalimna Vineyard), Magill Estate (Adelaide), and Morphett Vale (Adelaide) and McLaren Vale.
1955 Penfolds Grange is from a warm-to-hot vintage with rainfall figures 60% above average.
Penfolds Grange is now called Penfolds Bin 95 Grange Shiraz but this wine is labelled Penfolds Grange Bin 95 Hermitage.
1955 Grange is not only regularly included in lists of “Great Grange Releases”; it contends to be the best Penfolds Grange ever.
Mattinson has tasted Penfolds Grange Hermitage 1955 on only one occasion. Once tasted; never, ever forgotten.
Review:
A miraculous wine. This is really, seriously, bloody delicious. It’s feral, sweet, leathery and yet juicy with genuine flavour and a long, pulsating, extraordinary flare of a finish. The tannins here are slaking, fine, firm and joyous. The palate is curranty, chocolatey and pruney too. Here’s where wine gets emotional. Some of the above descriptors sound concerning to the modern sensibility but in the glass they are anything but. This is a dry wine but not a drying wine. It’s kaleidoscopic. It’s unstoppable. I tasted this wine when it was over 50 years old. Over 50, years, old. And it made me tremble. And it made me beam. As it lifted me onto its mound of magnificence and said there you go, you made it home, you’re safe.
97 points.
(But really, in 50-year-old wine terms, this is as close to 100 as you’ll encounter).
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All reviews of Penfolds Grange on this site are available via the Penfolds Grange tag.
Penfolds is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.
The best guide to Penfolds Grange Shiraz is The Winefront.The Winefront has honest, independent reviews of every release of Penfolds Grange from the 1952 Penfolds Grange through to the current release. Crucially, The Winefront (and this Mattinson site) has no association or working relationship with Penfolds in any way.
Campbell Mattinson has tasted every vintage of Penfolds Grange from the 1952 Penfolds Grange through to the current release of Penfolds Grange inclusive.
Campbell Mattinson has been a journalist for 40 years, a wine critic for 25 years, is a former chief editor of Halliday Wine Companion and was the founder of The Winefront business. He’s steadfastly independent. He’s published five books on wine, four of them bestsellers.
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