An invitation to dinner at the Jones’s on Saturday turned into a splendid special occasion. Christopher Jones very kindly shared a bottle of Penfolds Grange with me, Jan and Viv.
He won the bottle of 1998 Grange as a door prize many years back and had recently re-discovered it.
There was a moment of tension as the cork started to break up on opening, but that was completed without any cork falling into the wine. Then came the decanting, with Chris pouring carefully and me holding the torch to warn when sediment was about to approach the neck.
Grange – mmmm . . .
Chris let it breathe in the decanter for an hour before he shared it out into some big red wine glasses. Then the tasting – mmm. Very special – wonderful aroma, full of flavour, smooth and dark.
One critic said of the 1998: “The wine is exceptional and certainly lives up to its reputation as Australia’s No. 1 wine. Opaque black crimson colour. Superb nose with that distinctive aromatic marker that is Grange. Perfumed notes of violets, ripe plum, cedar and spice emerge over a distinctive American oak background. The palate flavours explode and delivers flavours of great length and depth. Mouthfilling with flavours of confectionary, ripe plum, American oak, cedar, dark chocolate, liquorice and violet infusions. Perfect balance . . “
Snacks had been prepared to go with the wine. We finished it before moving on to the main course. The food was lovely as well, of course.
Now it’s back to the usual plonk. Sigh! (Just kidding – the usual plonk isn’t bad at all.)
Correction: See Viv’s comment – they weren’t snacks, they were canapés!
Oh wasn’t it lovely!
Just a menu note that those “snacks” were canapés!