Penfolds Grange is Australia's most famous wine.
It's one of our greatest, and most collectable, as good vintages age for 50 years and build great complexity of flavour with time.
If the Premier was given a Grange from his birth-year, 1959, costing almost $3000, I hope he had the good luck to receive a bottle with a good cork, which had been well cellared, because this vintage is getting a little past its best and should have been drunk by now.
Good bottles could still be very enjoyable – as long as you have a taste for very old red wine. Most people don't, because they seldom get the opportunity.
If your idea of a good red is something young, purple and fruity, you might think '59 Grange resembles an infusion of old boots, used socks and outback dust. Few old Granges are valued anywhere near the $3000 mark. For those that are, it's more about rarity than quality.
The '59 Grange was never a top vintage and its price is high because it is scarce. The '55, on the other hand, is a great and very famous vintage, one of the best, and has a similar auction value, because it's not quite so rare.
If I was Barry O'Farrell, I'd have tried to swap the '59 for a '55.
Huon Hooke, smh.com.au
I've been fortunate enough over the past 30 years to taste quite a few bottles of Grange, Penfolds' legendary flagship red wine - some of them in the company of the late Max Schubert, who created the style during the 1951 vintage after visiting France and tasting some of the greatest reds from Bordeaux.
While some bottles have been obviously better than others, sniffing and sipping the enormously powerful flavours of Grange has always been a near-religious experience.
That said, I only rate the 1959 vintage as fair-to-middling in the overall Grange spectrum, and not in the stellar class of the ensuing 1960 and 1962 vintages which are among the best wines I have ever tasted.
Would I surreptitiously wink at the auctioneer when the bidding for a bottle of Penfolds 1959 Grange headed towards $3000, even if I did have the readies in my pocket?
Certainly not, but I would still love to wrap my gums around its rich, complex, full-bodied flavours, even if they may be getting a bit tired more than 50 years on, and salute one of the visionaries who did so much to elevate the quality and aspirations of Australian wine.
John Rozentals, Illawarra Mercury
