Penfolds Grange 1997 Bin 95

A vintage, we were told, that was ‘overshadowed by huge years on each side.’ It may have been overshadowed for years, but it is just great right now! Seductive texture, like sea-polished driftwood. Cedar and dark fruit and graphite and iron and touch of wild thyme. Very elegant. Shadowy but a wine with subtle strength. Early-morning campfire. Smoke and pepper. Perhaps the least rich of the five Grange vintages, but the one wine where port-sweet fruit stepped back to allow so much more complexity of herb and spice to come to the fore. I thought that this was quite special. And so lovely for drinking now.