Penfolds Grange at 75: Celebrating Australia's Most Iconic Wine

From a daring experiment quietly pursued against management’s wishes to one of the world’s most celebrated fine wines, Penfolds Grange has spent 75 years redefining Australian winemaking. A recent anniversary dinner in Kuala Lumpur celebrated not only an extraordinary wine, but also the vision, persistence, and craftsmanship that transformed Grange into a global icon.

For many wine lovers, there are great wines, and then there are legends. Suffice it to say, Penfolds Grange comfortably occupies the latter category.

Earlier this year, Penfolds marked the 75th anniversary of its celebrated flagship wine with a series of exclusive celebratory dinners around the world, including a memorable vertical tasting in Kuala Lumpur. Guests were invited to experience multiple vintages of Grange, each thoughtfully paired with a bespoke menu designed to highlight the wine’s remarkable structure, complexity, and extraordinary capacity for ageing.

It was an appropriate way to honour a wine whose story is as compelling as the liquid in the glass.

Today, Grange is widely regarded as Australia’s most famous wine and one of the world’s most collectable labels, but its success was never guaranteed. In fact, had events unfolded just slightly differently during the late 1950s, Penfolds Grange might never have existed at all.

A VISION THAT CHANGED AUSTRALIAN WINE

The story begins in 1950, when Penfolds’ first Chief Winemaker, Max Schubert, travelled through Europe to study traditional winemaking techniques. During his visit to Bordeaux, he became fascinated by the great French wines that seemed to improve with decades of careful cellaring.

At the time, Australian wines were generally produced for immediate enjoyment rather than long-term ageing. Schubert returned home determined to challenge convention by creating a full-bodied Australian red capable of developing gracefully over many decades.

His first experimental vintage appeared in 1951.

Named “Grange Hermitage” after Grange Cottage, the historic home of Penfolds founders Dr Christopher and Mary Penfold, the wine represented something entirely new. Built primarily around Shiraz and matured in new American oak barrels, it departed quite dramatically from prevailing Australian winemaking styles.

Ironically enough, not everyone appreciated Schubert’s bold vision. Following an internal tasting in 1957, senior management reportedly judged the wine too different from market expectations and instructed him to discontinue the project.

Fortunately for wine lovers everywhere, Schubert quietly ignored those instructions, engaging in just a little bit of what could be called oenological subterfuge!

Working discreetly in Penfolds’ Magill Estate cellars alongside colleague Jeffrey Penfold Hyland, he continued producing Grange in secret through the 1957, 1958, and 1959 vintages. Quite unsurprisingly, those “hidden vintages” have since become one of the most celebrated chapters in Australian wine history.

By 1960, as earlier vintages matured and revealed their remarkable quality, Penfolds’ management recognized Schubert’s foresight and officially reinstated the project. The rest, as they say, is history.

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EXCELLENCE

Three-quarters of a century later, Grange remains the ultimate expression of the Penfolds House Style, built upon a philosophy that has become synonymous with the winery itself: sourcing exceptional fruit from multiple premium vineyards across South Australia before blending them into a wine that is consistently greater than the sum of its parts.

Unlike many of the world’s great wines, which are tied to a single vineyard or appellation, Grange is deliberately multi-regional. Only the finest parcels of fruit are selected each year, allowing Penfolds’ winemaking team to pursue consistency of style rather than simply expressing a particular site.

That philosophy has served the winery extraordinarily well.

Across its uninterrupted lineage of vintages since 1951, Grange has accumulated more than 37 perfect scores from leading international wine critics. The celebrated 1990 vintage was named Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year, while the 2008 Grange became the first Australian wine ever to receive perfect 100-point scores from both Wine Spectator and Robert Parker’s influential Wine Advocate. Numerous subsequent vintages have also achieved coveted 100-point ratings, further cementing Grange’s reputation among the world’s elite wines.

Collectors have taken notice: Rare early bottles now command astonishing prices at auction. In 2021, a single bottle of the inaugural 1951 Grange sold for around AUD157,000, while an extraordinary complete collection spanning every vintage from 1951 to 2018 achieved approximately AUD430,000 at auction the following year.

Yet despite its rarity and prestige, Grange has never stood still.

Each vintage remains unmistakably Grange while subtly reflecting the growing season from which it emerged. Partial barrel fermentation, maturation in American oak for up to 20 months, and careful bottle ageing before release allow the wine to develop remarkable depth, while small proportions of Cabernet Sauvignon are occasionally incorporated with the famed Shiraz to enhance aromatic complexity and structural balance.

The result is a wine capable of evolving for decades, rewarding both patience and careful cellaring.

That remarkable longevity was vividly illustrated during the Kuala Lumpur anniversary dinner, where guests experienced Grange across multiple vintages, observing first-hand how younger wines displayed power and concentration while older releases revealed increasing elegance, complexity, and nuance.

The evening also celebrated the people who have carried Schubert’s vision forward. Rather than relying on a single legendary winemaker, Grange has benefited from generations of custodians, each preserving the distinctive Penfolds House Style while ensuring the wine continues to evolve without losing its identity.

That continuity has become one of Grange’s defining strengths.

THE MAN BEHIND MODERN GRANGE

The Kuala Lumpur anniversary dinner was made all the more memorable by the presence of Penfolds Chief Winemaker Peter Gago, one of the wine world’s most respected figures and only the fourth custodian of Grange in its 75-year history. Born in England before emigrating to Australia as a child, Gago began his professional life as a chemistry and mathematics teacher before following what he has described as “the grip of the grape.” After graduating as dux in oenology from Roseworthy College, he joined Penfolds in 1989, initially working with sparkling wines before moving into reds. He was appointed Chief Winemaker in 2002, succeeding the legendary John Duval.

Currently, Gago oversees not only the stewardship of Grange and Penfolds’ iconic Bin wines, but also the winery’s ambitious international ventures in France, California, and beyond. His role extends far beyond the cellar, however. Equally at home in a vineyard, winery, or tasting room, he has become one of Australia’s foremost wine ambassadors, travelling extensively to share Penfolds’ philosophy, history, and wines with collectors and enthusiasts around the world.

His contribution to Australian wine has been widely recognized, including being named South Australia’s Great Wine Capitals Global Ambassador and receiving appointment as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), one of the nation’s highest civilian honours.

Throughout the evening, Gago’s engaging storytelling, encyclopedic knowledge, and genuine passion for Grange brought an added dimension to the vertical tasting, offering guests a rare opportunity to hear firsthand from the very man entrusted with guiding Australia’s most celebrated wine into its next chapter. For our part, we thoroughly enjoyed Gago’s affable nature every bit as much as his incredible depth of wine knowledge, which he was only too happy to share with us.

Today, Penfolds itself spans almost two centuries of winemaking, with vineyards and projects extending beyond Australia into France, the United States, and China. Yet Grange remains the winery’s spiritual heart — the benchmark against which every other Penfolds wine is ultimately measured.

As glasses were raised in Kuala Lumpur to commemorate Grange’s 75th anniversary, the celebration represented far more than an impressive birthday. It honoured one man’s refusal to abandon an audacious idea, a winery’s unwavering commitment to craftsmanship, and a wine that forever changed international perceptions of what Australia could produce.

Few wines become legends. Even fewer remain relevant after three-quarters of a century. Penfolds Grange has achieved both, and judging by its remarkable legacy, its finest chapters may still yet lie ahead.

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