1976 Grange

Sourced from the Barossa Valley (including Kalimna Vineyard), Magill Estate (Adelaide) and Modbury Vineyard (Adelaide).

Very good with ideal conditions throughout. The warm vintage resulted in big, rich, concentrated wines.

Shiraz (89%), Cabernet Sauvignon (11%). Eighteen months in new American oak hogsheads.

Don Ditter, Penfolds chief winemaker

98/100

A legendary vintage, this massive, powerhouse wine is a reference point for what great Grange Hermitage is all about.

The color remains a thick, opaque ruby/garnet with no signs of amber or brown. The wine is beginning to reveal some evolution in its huge, fragrant nose of coffee, cedar, chocolate, prunes, and overripe black-cherries and currants.

With massive richness and body, flavors that coat the palate in a viscous, pure, mindboggling manner, and a finish that lasts for nearly a minute, this huge Grange Hermitage that may one day resemble in its decadent richness and thick, unctuous texture, such Bordeaux legends as the 1947 Petrus, 1947 Cheval Blanc, and 1947 Lafleur.

This wine can be drunk now or cellared for another 10–15 years. A natural born legend!

Robert M. Parker Jr., Wine Advocate #100 August 1995

93/100

Harvey Steiman, Wine Spectator, 31 January 1997

94/100

Jeremy Oliver, www.jeremyoliver.com