It was an anniversary, and I thought the 1986 St. Henri should be about ready to drink. The last bottle we drank about 7-8 years ago showed sublime fruit and balance but surprised us with its youth and vigour. This time, the wine had mellowed to an almost perfect degree showing sweet fruit, wonderful balance, great length and a soft elegant finish. Perfect with my partner’s duck and my lamb shanks.
Grange and St. Henri were created by two young Turk Penfold winemakers in the early fifties: Grange by Max Schubert and St. Henri by John Davoren. We know all about Grange and how Penfolds sent Max to Bordeaux after WWII, and how Max came back saying: their secret is maturing the red wine made mostly from Cabernet grapes in new small French oak barrels.
In those days, there wasn’t much Cabernet grown in Australia, so Max used shiraz from selected sources that included the Grange vineyard in Adelaide. French oak barrels were - and still are - hideously expensive, so Max bought the cheaper American oak. The rest, as they say, is history.
Nothing had prepared our leading wine men for the early Granges because new oak flavours were foreign to them. And it took Max a few years to work out that ripe South Australian Shiraz was much more muscular than Bordeaux Cabernet, and that American oak contributed a lot more oak flavour than the French timber because it is much more porous.
His masters told Max to stop making this wine that caused Penfolds so much bad PR in the fifties but Max persevered in secret. A few years later, our judges started to see how these wines developed and became fans. Today, Grange sells for hundreds of dollars a bottle when released.
St. Henri has a much less exciting history. John Davoren made the wine from shiraz and matured it in big old barrels as was the Aussie tradition then. He found a box of the quaint St. Henri Claret labels in an attic and decided to use it. Both wines were blends from sources that varied year on year and both wines sold for the same price until the early sixties (a bit over $2), then St. Henri dropped behind.
For many years it was the bargain in the Penfolds range as punters chased the other reds that were matured in oak – Bin 389, 28 and 128. I remember picking up a dozen 1967 St. Henri from Farmer Bros for about $11 a bottle in the early eighties, when the Grange of that vintage would’ve cost 10 times that or more. The 67 St. Henri was another elegant, well balanced wine that mellowed gracefully.
Today, St. Henri costs more than $100 a bottle on release, so it’s no longer a bargain by ant standards. So this 1986 may be the last bottle of St. Henri we’ve enjoyed, and it may be a good thing that it made such a wonderful impact. It was one of the best reds I’ve ever drunk, it was that good.
