Penfolds
Penfolds is a winery and vineyard in South Australia and is owned by the Treasury Wine Estates Ltd.
history
The winery was founded in 1844 by Dr. Christopher Rawson founded Penfold. It is thus one of the oldest wineries in Australia and, alongside Peter Lehmanns , one of the most important. Penfold first studied medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. At the age of 33, he emigrated to Australia with his wife Mary and daughter Georgina, founded a winery there in Magill east of Adelaide and planted the vines in the vicinity that he had bought for this purpose in France before he emigrated stone country house, which he named after the home of his wife Mary The Grange .
As a doctor, Penfold believed in the medicinal effectiveness of wine . At the beginning he produced heavy wines as tonic for his patients, which were similar to a sherry or port wine . As the demand for these wines increased, the winery expanded. After Penfold passed away in 1870, his wife Mary took over the management of the winery. Mary Penfold was replaced in 1884 by her daughter Georgina and her husband Thomas Hyland. In 1881 the annual production was already 500,000 liters, the cultivation area was 50 hectares at the turn of the century . In 1921, the family business was converted into a company and the acreage was expanded to include locations in the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale in South Australia and additional locations in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales .
During the Second World War , the production of wine was reduced and that of sherry and port wine increased. In the 1940s and 1950s, Penfolds began to concentrate again on the production of table wine and thus to accommodate the changed drinking behavior. Attempts by the cellar master from Penfolds, Max Schubert, finally led to the production of the most famous and valuable wine from Penfolds, and indeed from all of Australia, between 1945 and 1951 - the Shiraz Grange Hermitage , which has simply been called Grange since 1990 .
In 1976, Penfolds was taken over by New South Wales' Tooth & Co. brewery. In 1982 the winery was owned by the Adelaide Steamship Co., and in 1990 by South Australia Brewing, which then became part of the Southcorp Group itself. In 2005, the Southcorp wineries came into the possession of the Foster's Group, which also includes the Seppelt , Rosemount , Lindemans, Wolf Blass wineries from Australia and the Beringer winery from California, founded by two German brothers in 1876. In 2011, Foster's split its wine business into Treasury Wine Estates Ltd. from.
Penfolds currently operates two wineries: the parent company in Magill near Adelaide and a second winery in Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley. The winery sources its grapes from over 200 independent contract winemakers with a total cultivation area of 2000 hectares; the annual production is about 1.4 million bottles.
The Penfolds grape varieties
In addition to the famous Grange , Penfolds produces a number of other high-quality red wines , such as Bin 707 , RWT (Red Winemaking Trial), St. Henri or the Magill Estate . The Bin 389 is also often referred to as “ Baby Grange ” because it is stored in the barrels that were previously used for the Grange . But small quantities of white wines and liqueurs are also produced. Max Schubert developed a system of numbered barrels, so-called " bins ", in which the wines are stored to denote the wines . The first of these wines was Bin 2 from 1962. In memory of long-time cellar master Max Schubert, Penfolds recently created Max's with the same grape varieties as Grange and Bin 389, i.e. Shiraz and a smaller proportion of Cabernet.
Grange Hermitage and Grange
Max Schubert began his first experiments with Shiraz grapes in 1945. The first vintage was finally presented in 1951 - but this has not yet been marketed. When the first commercial year of the Grange Hermitage was presented in 1952, it did not correspond to the general style direction and was already on the brink of extinction after a few years. The taste changed, however, Max Schubert remained true to the character of the Grange . Since then, this wine has been awarded medals and honors and is one of the most consistent quality wines in the world across all vintages . The well-known wine critic Hugh Johnson described it as the “only true Gran Cru of the southern hemisphere”, the Wine Spectators Magazine called the 1990 Grange the “best red wine in the world” and mentioned the 1955 vintage as one of the best twelve wines of the 20th century. Since 1962, the Grange has won 126 gold, 76 silver and 42 bronze medals, as well as 28 trophies and seven championships at international tastings. He was also able to win two Jimmy Watson trophies, which is surprising due to the extraordinary style of the Grange .
The Grange is usually a blend of an average of 95 to 97%, but at least 87% Shiraz grapes from different locations and regions. There is also about 3 to 5%, up to a maximum of 13% Cabernet Sauvignon to balance the wine. Certain vintages (1951, 1952, 1963, 1999, 2000 and 2001) are made 100% from Shiraz and are therefore single-origin. Because of this variable blending, the quality of a vintage is not dependent on the quality of a single location or grape variety. Traditionally, the Grange begins its fermentation in steel tanks. During fermentation , the wine is in barrels made of American oak transferred, where he continues to develop for 18 months. After this phase, the wine is bottled and aged for another three to four years in the bottle. Through this five-year process, the latest published vintage of the Grange is currently from 2012.
Up until the 1989 vintage, the wine was marketed as Grange Hermitage , then simply as Grange - sometimes specifically as Bin 95 . A Grange Hermitage of the first vintage from 1951, of which there are probably only 20 pieces worldwide, fetched a record amount of over AUD 50,000 (over 30,000 euros ) at an auction in 2004 - the highest bid ever made for an Australian red wine.
Awards
Some selected awards for Penfolds wines:
-
Grange , born in 1994
- Weinwisser: 20/20 points
- WineSpectator: 96/100 points
-
Grange , born 1995
- Weinwisser: 19/20 points
- WineSpectator: 97/100 points
- "Grange", JG 1996
- Robert Parker's Wine Advocat with 93 ParkerPoints (PP) / 100 points
- "Grange", JG 1997 with 94 PP
- "Grange", JG 1998 with 98+ PP
- "Grange", JG 1999 with 92 PP
- "Grange", JG 2000 with 93 PP
- "Grange", JG 2001 with 98+ PP
- "Grange", JG 2002 with 98 PP
- "Grange", JG 2003 with 92 PP
- Grange JG 2008 with 100 PP and 100 points Wine-Spectator
- Grange JG 2010 with 99 PP
- Grange JG 2012 with 99 PP
-
Am 707 , born in 1996
- Weinwisser: 18/20 points
- WineSpectator: 93/100 points
-
Am 407 , born in 1996
- Mondo: 92/100 points
-
I am 28 , born in 1996
- WineSpectator: 90/100 points
- Mondo: 91/100 points
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Belvini: " Penfolds Grange - the best wine in Australia "
- ↑ Wine Spectator: " Spotlight On: Grange 1998 " (English)
- ↑ che .: Foster's splits off the wine division . In: FAZ, May 11, 2011
- ↑ Penfolds: Winemaking: Growers ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ Hugh Johnson: The Great Johnson. The new encyclopedia of wines, wine regions and winemakers in the world. German by Wolfgang Kissel, 8th edition, Hallwag, Bern; Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-444-10382-4 , p. 538
- ↑ WinePros.com: Portrait of Penfolds ( Memento of the original from September 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ Penfolds: Bin-Range ( Memento of the original dated November 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ weinverkostungen.de: " Penfolds Max's - In memory of Max Schubert "
- ↑ a b Wein-Haas: Portrait of Penfolds
- ↑ Penfolds: Der Grange ( Memento of the original dated November 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ Penfolds: " The Story of Grange " by Max Schubert ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English, PDF )
- ↑ Strat's Place: Description of the 1966-1997 years of the Grange Hermitage or Grange
- ↑ As of October 2016
- ↑ ABCNews : " Grange fetches record price " (English, accessed October 27, 2007)
Web link
- Penfolds (English)