I felt underdressed walking into the lobby of the grand hotel,
not that
I should have dusted off my cravat, but perhaps gone less for the
grungy photographer/writer look. To be honest, I'd have been
quite pleased with myself if I were able to pull that look off too! I
hitched up my trousers and continued to fidget in the lift to the top
of the building. It was a good thing the clinic was in the penthouse -- those extra floors gave me just the necessary time to focus on
the job at hand.
Greeted by beautiful young people, I
began to relax, I gave my name and was ushered into the waiting room. Sitting in the appropriately posh, modern, wood-lined room, regretting I
didn't take the offer of some Fiji water or fresh juice, I realised I was at least 30 years younger than anyone else there. I sat
awkwardly on a chair and watched the Penfolds team in plasma glory
talking about previous clinics. Everyone seemed so happy and content, I
just wanted to shift to the soft armchair.
I was given the prerequisite reading material and a very nice
sample
bottle of 1990 Penfolds 707 to use in the clinic. I was happy with
that, but I knew I wasn't experiencing the same quiet anxiety
the others in the room were, with their own fortunes wrapped in towels
and held close to their chests. Although entranced by the magic of the plasma
television, I could hear some chat from people coming out of the
special room, asking one another how they did. "Any
luck?" questioned one. "Yeah, not bad at
all," replied another, with a resonant chuckle that resulted in
a strange jerking motion through his body. It was not just soft drinks
available on this day -- a tasting table acted as buffet for pre-
or post-clinic beverages and, not surprisingly, the men in leather-elbowed jackets were kept busy bringing glasses of sauv blanc to their
wives. I hope they don't get a shock if they ever open their
beloved bottles and realise Penfolds Grange is sadly not made from sauvignon blanc, but rather slightly heavier and less refreshing shiraz.
Feeling conspicuously "not like the
others", I was happy when two young guys joined me in
waiting for names to be called. They seemed relaxed and
organised, with their bottles of Grange or perhaps 707 packed in neat
six packs. I nodded appropriately and smiled. They looked at me and
thought I hadn't quite nailed the grunge look. I went back to
watching the giant screen and listened as "Keeper of the
Grange" Peter Gago talked about providing a "wonderful holistic re-corking experience". I
quickly jotted this down as my name was called, and wondered whether I
was about to have someone check a bottle of wine for me or administer
an enema. Not familiar with how that could have worked, the more
troubling realisation was that I didn't have my good undies on!
The idea of the re-corking clinic is as
simple as it is unique. The Penfolds team travel the globe visiting "clients", to make
sure their bottles of joy are
in sound condition. If need be, the wines are opened and tasted and
then, as the title of the program suggests, they are re-corked and
stickered with official stickers, guaranteeing not only a sound
product, but a higher resale value on the secondary market. What makes
this process frightening is that if the wine has to be opened (when, due to the
ullage of the bottle, the wine reaches the "line of
curvature"), and the wine is not sound, you get the white
sticker of loss. Loss of resale value, loss of pride, loss of choice,
as the wines that get the dot must be drunk within the week, or so they
advise. Two men I spoke to had two of their 24 bottles stuck with the
white dot, and they seemed quite content that they were forced to drink
their bottles sooner rather than later. I pictured them in a
frayed BYO restaurant, toasting their bottles' failure, chuckling
that no-one else in the fluorescent-lit dining room might know the bottle was
a dud.
The clinic room was quiet and filled only with the sound of gentle
chat, old
bottles being ripped open by young men and women with a wide array of
uncorking products, the hush of inert gas being blown into bottles, and
a humming hand-operated bottling machine. The lengths that Penfolds
have gone to to keep customers -- who not only might not have bought a bottle
of wine for fifteen years, or in some cases ever bought one at all,
but been offered it as a gift -- is first class and shows unequalled
confidence in a ceaseless heritage of winemaking. As I watched "my" bottle going through the motions, I was told a
new record had been set by a '51 Grange surpassing the old
mark of $51,000 to reach $54,000. Indeed, there were staff on hand from
Langton's, the famous auction house, who seemed to oversee the
entire process, watching as the bad ones" were "weeded out of the system".
Spanning some 17 years and having assessed over
90,000
bottles of wine, Penfolds continues to go above and beyond for a wine
company, and offers consumers -- or given the fact that not of lot of the
wine purchased has been drunk, offers Penfolds hoarders -- a chance to
meet the people behind the brand and more often than not, have a
relieved happy chat and a joint pat on the back. Some of the lucky
ones get to have their wine looked at by Grange head winemaker Peter
Gago. This is truly a rockstar experience for some, and I must admit,
he has a wonderful honesty about him. Apart from not personally
offering me a "wonderful holistic ... experience",
the wine industry is a better place knowing people like him exist.
Penfolds wine may not be for everyone -- it's not my idea of a good time, but it is for many. The
ability to age gracefully across all price levels in the Penfolds
stable is without peer, and without a product like Grange the
Australian wine industry may not be what it is today. I left the clinic
with a sense of awe about the whole process, the people, the effort,
the simple pleasure of having tasted the '90 707. After
all, this is what the heart of the process is -- guaranteeing a nice
drink. I tucked the bottle tightly under my arm, thanked the beautiful
people, had a sip of the sauv blanc and tousled my hair in the lift on
the way down.
If the clinic sounds like your kind of thing, the best part is that they are
free and all you need is a bottle of Red Penfolds wine which is at
least 15 years old. Contact Penfolds for dates for when the recorking
clinic will next be in your part of the world.
Ben Knight (c) BENandWINE.com
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