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10 wines that tell the Avery Story No 5.


5. Penfolds Grange
The fifth  of our ‘10 wines that tell the Averys story’ is Australia’s iconic Penfolds Grange, known as ‘Penfolds Grange Hermitage’ until the 1989 vintage.
It was 1965 when a young John Avery arrived in Australia for the very first time. So rare was it for a wine merchant from the UK to visit Australia back then that he was greeted at the airport by journalists from the Sydney Morning Herald and Sydney Daily Telegraph keen to find out why he was visiting Australia and get his views on Australian wine.


“I’ve come to Australia to taste your wines as I haven’t had a good one yet.”

His reply may have not been the most diplomatic but Aussie wine producers rushed to change his mind including Max Lake (Lake’s Folly), Brian McWilliam (McWilliams), Richard Hill-Smith (Yalumba) and Max Schubert (Penfolds).

He toured Australia in a 1938 Rolls Royce and discovered that in fact, there were lots of exciting wines being made. So much so, that he wrote a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald saying he had been proved right – you had to visit Australia to taste the good wines!


However, there was one wine that really stood out on that visit in 1965. When John Avery visited Penfolds, they told him they sold all their wine in Australia and had no need to export to the UK! But John refused to leave Australia without just a few cases of Penfolds Grange Hermitage. Reluctantly, they agreed to sell him 10 cases of the 1960 vintage and Averys became the first UK wine merchant to import this now world-famous wine.

Like many of John’s best discoveries, it initially proved extremely difficult to sell! To show his customers that Australians could make wines just as good as the French, he entered Penfolds Grange Hermitage 1971 into the Gault-Milau Paris 1979 Wine Olympiad. This caused quite a stir by topping its class, beating the best Rhône Valley wines and winning a gold medal!

“I shall always remember his unstinting support and passionate belief in Australian wines at a time when they were regarded with a mixture of circumspection and not a little snobbishness too. He was a great advocate for their quality and potential.” John Thorne, De Bortoli.

In 1984, John became the chairman of the Australian Wine Importers’ Association and not long after, sales of Australian wine finally took off in the UK. Astonishingly, by 2000 more Australian wine was being drunk in the UK than French.

But who knew that it all began with 10 cases of Grange back in 1965?

If you are interested in purchasing recent releases of Penfolds Grange, please get in touch with our fine wine team on 01173 008 323 or email finewine@averys.com

Comments

  1. Unknown29 March 2020 at 12:59

    Hi everyone be careful Avery Wine have just taken £117.98 from my bank account. My last order was made in December.
    I have tried calling and no answer.

    ReplyDelete

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