Max Schubert creates iconic Penfold's Grange Hermitage in 1950s Adelaide by absorbing Bordeaux aged styles
Max Schubert and Penfold's Grange Hermitage gained international recognition from UK's Decanter Magazine and USA's Wine Spectator.
Images courtesy Penfolds
Max Schubert, pioneering South Australian creator of Penfold’s Grange Hermitage wine, was in the Sydney Morning Herald’s 2001 list of 100 most influential Australians of the century.
Honoured as a Member of the Order of Australia, the first Maurice O’Shea Award winner and 1988 Man of the Year by the UK's Decanter Magazine, Schubert’s Grange won more show prizes than any other Australian red wine and was the flagship of Australia's wine industry.
Born to German Lutheran parents near the Barossa Valley, Schubert was determined to join the wine industry and started with Penfolds in 1931 as a messenger boy. He became Penfolds’ first chief winemaker in 1948 at the age of 33 and held that position until 1975.
Schubert spent his entire working life with Penfolds, the only break being in World War II when he volunteered against the wishes of the managing director at Penfolds. He is believed to have saved the life of another Australian soldier when Stuka dive bombers wiped out his convoy in north Africa, killing 200 men. He also served in Greece, Crete, the Middle East, Ceylon and New Guinea, where he contracted malaria.
In 1949 Schubert was sent to France and Spain to learn more about making fortified wine – still the main focus of Australian wineries. He tasted aged wines at Bordeaux, including first-growth estates Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Latour and Château Margaux.
Back in Adelaide, Schubert started creating a Penfolds wine that would match the ability to age seen in France. In 1951, he named first experimental wine "Grange Hermitage", combining the Penfold family cottage “Grange” and the French appellation “Hermitage” (for a shiraz area). Unlike the Bordeaux wines, Grange wasn't cabernet but almost exclusively shiraz.
Schubert believed, despite several unorthodox features, that finding the right raw materials to match conditions, he could produce a wine that “could stand on its own feet throughout the world and would be capable of improvement year by year for a minimum of 20 years.”
The first Grange in 1952 didn’t do well commercial and Schubert was shocked in 1957 when the wine was rejected by top management, wine identities and friends of the board. He was told to stop production. He didn’t and the 1957, 1958 and 1959 vintages were still made. The board change its opinion in time for the 1960 vintage when he used new oak barrels for the first time.
The 1955 Grange Hermitage went into competitions from 1962 and won more than 50 gold medals. The 1971 vintage won first prize syrah/shiraz at the Wine Olympics in Paris. The 1990 vintage was named Red Wine of the Year by the USA’s Wine Spectator that later rated the 1998 vintage a 99 points out of a 100.
It was added to the list of South Australian heritage items.
