1968 Penfolds Grange Hermitage
Drinking Window: Now
Medium brick red. Complex herb garden/baked earth/meaty aromas. The wine still has some fruit-sweetness with baked earth/meaty/herb/minty flavours and fine slightly leafy tannins. Beginning to dry out.
94% Shiraz, 6% Cabernet Sauvignon. Kalimna Vineyard (Barossa Valley), Barossa Valley, Magill Estate (Adelaide), Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills and Coonawarra. A hot dry vintage with only intermittent rains during the growing season.
Notes sourced from Southcorp Wines.
Grape Varieities: A blend of 93% Shiraz & 7% Cabernet Sauvignon the fruit was sourced from Magill (Adelaide), Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, Coonawarra & Kalimna (Barossa Valley).
Total acids: 5.9 grams per litre. pH: 3.76 Alcohol: 12.1%
Vintage Conditions: Hot, dry vintage with growing season rainfall down more than 20 per cent on average.
Tasting Notes:size> Max Schubert considers the 1968 a "lesser Grange". Some experts believe that oak character dominates the fruit in the wine, which nevertheless won a trophy, six golds and five other medals between 1968 and 1973. Rated 85/100 by Robert Parker in 1990.
Fully developed. Mature fruit, lightening off. Drinking well. (Rewards of Patience, 1st ed., 1985)
A lovely old wine, quite fragile and fungal, but still with a lovely, sweet, old leather core. (Tim White, Aust Financial Review, Nov. 1994)
Developed, mature and very good, with smoky, meaty, savoury complexity. A front-rank Grange. (Ultimate Grange Experience, Nov. 1994)
"Medium brick red. Very developed leathery/prune- like aromas. Palate beginning to dry out, with fading prune/ leather- like fruit flavours, fine but slightly green- edged tannins and dry finish. Well past its best. Drink now." (Southcorp Wines, The Rewards of Patience, Fourth Edition, March 2000)