Click here to enjoy part 1 in glorious detail, or skim this no-frills recap…
Max started working for Penfolds at age 15 as an errand boy at their Nuriootpa winery. Within 3 years, he’d been promoted, transferred to Magill, and apprenticed to head winemaker Alfred Vesey. At the outbreak of WW2, he enlisted (ignoring a company directive) and served overseas for 5 years. On his return, he resumed work at Magill, and in 1948, was appointed Chief Winemaker. In 1950, Max was sent to Europe to study the making of fortifieds. He returned with a driving passion to create – not sherry – but powerful and long-lived table wines like those he had tasted in France.
OK, you’re up to date. But before we go forward, we need to go back…
Arthur Ray Beckwith OAM (1912 – 2012) known always as Ray - or Becky to the anointed few - graduated with honours (Dux!) from Roseworthy College in 1932.
It was a time when bacterial spoilage was rife in Australian wineries. Winemakers were routinely losing up to 25% of production - and Penfolds was no exception, so a bright young chemist with a good working knowledge of winemaking and a special interest in yeast cultures was a godsend. Leslie Penfold Hyland snaffled him up and set him to work at Penfolds, Nuriootpa. Ray got cracking, setting up a lab dedicated exclusively to yeast cultivation and research. In the ensuing years, his ground-breaking work on stabilisation through temperature-controlled ferments and pH balancing led to a massive overall improvement in wine quality – and paved the way for that other Penfolds Prodigy to create his Magnum Opus.
Max returned from Europe excited, inspired and eager to create a wine the like of which had never been seen in Australia - a quality red table wine with character, flavour and the ability to age. Determined to use the best possible raw materials, Max sourced Shiraz from old bush vines at Magill and Morphett Vale. (Later vintages would include material from Reynella, McLaren Vale and Clare, but the core of his multi-region blend was - and is - Barossa.)
Building on the science provided by Beckwith, Max extended his wine’s fermentation from the usual 24-hour flurry to a slow and controlled 12 days, achieving maximum colour, aroma and flavour extraction; then he matured it in small, new American oak hogsheads. In tribute to Penfolds’ founders, Christopher and Mary Penfold, he named his wine Grange Hermitage - after their stone cottage and vineyard.
Over the next 5 years, Max quietly and studiously continued to develop and evolve the style. In 1957, Head Office in Sydney decided it was time to crack out the ’51 Grange. Max was summoned to conduct a tasting for senior management and other wine cognoscenti. To the Board’s annoyance – and to Max’s utter horror – his wine was loathed. Too big… Too dry… Tastes like dead ants… No-one in their right mind would drink it… Radical. Chair of the board, Gladys Penfold Hyland, lost no time in letting Max know that his experiment was over.
But Max had his supporters, including Magill’s assistant manager - Gladys’ nephew, Jeffrey Penfold Hyland. More your rakish adventurer than your bona fide black sheep, Jeffrey nonetheless declined to toe the family line. With Jeffrey’s encouragement, far from the watchful eye of the Sydney bosses, Max produced 3 successive vintages of Grange in secret - in the underground cellars at Magill.
When word of the subterfuge finally emerged, a second tasting of the ’51 and ’55 vintages was arranged for the same group who had panned them earlier. Time had softened both the wines and the opinions of the Board – who ordered Grange back on the menu just in time for the 1960 vintage.
You don’t need WineDown to tell you the rest of the Grange story - it’s ubiquitous. And in any case, this issue isn’t about one (albeit extraordinary) wine, but two men: one an artist, the other a scientist. Neither could have achieved greatness without the other.
Their expertise, innovation, patience and persistence made EVERY Australian wine better; and together they established benchmarks to which the entire winemaking world aspires.
Max and Ray.
This much anticipated vintage has received an extraordinary seven perfect 100 point scores.
Introducing the California Collection an endeavour more than twenty years in the making.
The French release is led by a wine made in partnership with one of Bordeaux’s most respected winemaking Houses.