Penfolds Grange 2014 750mL Bottle

NOSE: An indulged aromatic meander: First in the kitchen – umami expressed primarily via wafts of shiitake mushroom stock, hoisin and XO sauce … enhancing scents of dry-aged beef and game meats. Then outside – olive-leaf, cardamom, sage and thyme … “a stroll through a South Australian olive grove” … saltbush, acacia, dried and dusty bracken. To the cellar – fresh and familial lifted formic and barrel-ferment nuances. Followed by a return to reality: Quite simply, an unmistakable youthful ‘Grange’ nose. Awakened primary fruits and stylish oak interlocked and indistinguishable. As expected. PALATE: Savoury, not fruity. Tastes/flavours remind of slow cooked beef ragout, chicken liver game terrine. Red liquorice also apparent. Integrated oak – spicy, almost ‘non-American’ oak … but it is. As it always is. A core of 100% new Quercus alba. Poised yet powerful. A balanced, tightly-knit and woven structural ‘tapestry’. Not to be constrained by dimension or frame. Tannins with attitude! Nonetheless respectful. Type? Slatey tannins … alluvial, silty (certainly not muddy!). Long and lingering – tactile impressions indistinguishably and slowly fuse/merge into an aftertaste memory. Until the next sip! A Grange to create new friends – this 2014 offering a subtly different structural mosaic; different tone and timbre.