RNDC (Young’s Market)® Penfolds – 6045848535199

Notes From the Winemaker:
In 1844 Christopher Rawson Penfold planted vines on the slopes of Magill to produce fortified wines. Penfolds is now proud to present a range of fortified wines that is a continuation of over 150 years of winemaking tradition and represents the finest collection of wines of this style in Australia.

Since 1985 Penfolds has been identifying the best barrels of Club Tawny and reserving them for additional maturation. These reserved barrels are then skilfully blended to create Penfolds Club Reserve, a definitive aged Australian Tawny in keeping with the Penfolds tradition of excellence.

Penfolds Grandfather Rare Tawny is batch-aged in old oak hogsheads for approximately eight years. After this stage it enters the six-stack “Grandfather Solera”, a fractional blending system utilised to maintain consistency in style.

Each year winemakers draw one-twelfth of each barrel from the lowest level of the Solera. The barrel is then topped up from the barrel sitting above it and the process is complete when the barrels on the highest level are one-twelfth empty.

The top barrels then receive the blended eight-year-old Grandfather Tawny. Theoretically, the wine drawn from the lowest level of the Solera is now at least twenty years of age, having been in the fractional blending system for twelve years.

During the maturation process, the wines become more concentrated and complex; opulence, weight and sweetness is intertwined and balanced by the alcohol, acidity, oak nuances and volatility. Grandfather Rare Tawny, with an average age in excess of fifteen years, has a dense, tawny colour, with rich, nutty aromas and extraordinary intensity on the palate.