This week’s announcement that old Grange is expensive was sensational news. At least, it was for anyone who’s been asleep for the last 20 years and has a high boredom threshold.
But since everyone else is writing about rich people buying stuff, we thought we’d better show willing.
So let’s find out how much you know about what is apparently the only wine currently being made in Australia.
Fake Booze’s Grange Angel quiz
1) The $140,000 just paid for the bottle of 1951 is
- a) a record for a bottle of Australian table wine
- b) generating a record amount of hype
- c) likely to be surpassed in 12 months when the next ‘Grange at Auction’ story comes out.
2) Is the Grange in question
- a) Bin 1
- b) Bin Laden
- c) Binsanely Expensive
3) Max Schubert only made a few barrels of the first vintage of Grange. But how many bottles of 1951 Grange are reckoned to be in existence today?
- a) 35
- b) 350
- c) 35,000 if you include the ones that Chinese forgers have just started work on now they’ve realised how much they could get for it.
4) The record-breaking 1951 bottle is a slice of history because it reminds us of
- a) a bygone era when Max Schubert was laying the foundations for Australia’s table wine industry
- b) a bygone era before everyone became obsessed with the price of a bottle of Grange
- c) a byegone era when a wine with Penfolds on the label was guaranteed to actually come from Australia.
5) The bottle in question is extra special because Max Schubert has
- a) hand recorked and signed it
- b) made it despite his bosses telling him to ‘stick to port because it’s the future’
- c) admitted that the secret to Grange is adding five tablespoons of mulligatawny soup to each barrel.
6) The buyer of this wine is
- a) a Sydney-based wine collector
- b) a lot poorer than he used to be
- c) desperately hoping it isn’t corked.
7) The six-figure sale
- a) is a surprise because it comes at a time when the global economy is generally depressed
- b) is a surprise because it comes at a time when the global population are generally depressed
- c) is no surprise at all because it comes, by happy coincidence, just three weeks before the release of the Penfolds Australia Collection 2021.
8) This is the 70th birthday of Grange. In 70 years’ time will Penfolds be known as
- a) producers of one of the world’s most famous wines
- b) producers of an impressive range of wines for all wallets
- c) a ubiquitous lifestyle brand that makes cars, watches, jewellery, clothing and sunglasses – with a bit of wine on the side. Most of it from Napa.
So, how did you do?
Mostly A’s – You are very well informed about what is going on with Grange and have doubtless read the same articles about it as Fake Booze. All of which were suspiciously similar in nature but definitely not recycled from the same press release.
Mostly B’s – You don’t just know what is happening with Penfolds and Grange, you think you know what’s really happening. Which probably puts you a couple of steps ahead of most of the Treasury Wine Estates board.
Mostly C’s – You are cynical, bitter and cruelly negative in the way you mock such a well-established star of the drinks world. Well done!
Click here to read about the Chinese police uncovering millions of fake fans of Penfolds; here to see Penfolds’ heroic entry into the Crap Tasting Note of the Year awards (Fruit Salad category); and here to read about Penfolds’ plans to plant a vineyard on Mars.
