No other Australian wine can rival the quality and development pattern of Grange. Always exciting and opulent, the pinnacle of Australian reds, 1987 Grange is an elegant edition, beginning juicy and plummy, culminating in a very firm, dry finish. The growing season and vintage were marked by cool weather, crops in most South Australian regions were reduced by hailstorms in October. "Full, firm, rich palate with excellent concentration of sweet plum and cherrylike fruit, vanillin oak flavours and soft, mouthfilling tannins!" -Winemaker John Duval

A good portion of Cabernet Sauvignon for this year, weighing in at 13%. 1971 created a sensation when it won gold and topped its class at the Gault-Millau Wine Olympiad in Paris in 1979, beating the best Rhone Valley wines. It also won a trophy, four gold, four silver and five bronze medals at Australian wine shows between 1971 and 1982. "If you had to point to a wine which fulfilled all the ambitions of Grange, it would have to be 1971" said Max Schubert in 1993, "A great wine from a vintage that was great throughout South Australia!"

Intensely spicy, raspberried, honeyed wine – incredibly fragrant – with cedar and cranberry scents frollicking throughout. These characteristics work better on the nose than they do in the mouth, yet still it’s as long and impressive as a freight train. Some will love this wine’s fleshy, warm sweetness, others may find it too oddball – but it’s in fine balance!" -Winefront.com.au, "One of my favorite vintages of Grange to actually drink at present is the 1982. The wine is gorgeously opulent and impossible to resist" -eRobertParker.com

The 1980 Grange is predominantly Shiraz with a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon (4%) from the Kalimna and other Barossa vineyards, the Clare Valley, Magill Estate, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra. A generally good growing season with fine and warm conditions, was followed by a cool vintage. "This was a light harvest. A nose of melted asphalt, pepper, creme de cassis, and blackberries changes little in the glass, but with airing, some sweeter plum, prune, and chocolate emerge in a very full-bodied, powerful, seamlessly constructed wine" -Robert Parker

Max Schubert's experimental work in the 1950s determined that South Australian Cabernet was unreliable, he recognised that Grange should be based around a spectrum of fruit. One of the great strengths of Grange is, whilst mostly a Shiraz, it does not rely on the performance of a single vineyard. From fruit grown at the Kalimna and other Barossa vineyards, Magill Estate in Adelaide, and other superior vineyards in the Coonawarra, McLaren Vale and Clare Valley, the 1984 is balanced with a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon 5%

Memorable for being the last of all vintages to be bottled in the original off-white foil capsules, and the first vintage to be bottled in magnums, nowadays there are usually six hundred magnum bottled each year. "The wine is deep ruby garnet with an unusual nose of root vegetables mixed with cola, caramel, black currant, and tar. Relatively attenuated in the finish, but sweet on the attack, this wine seems to be narrowing out, with the tannins becoming increasingly dominant. This is a vintage to monitor closely" -Robert Parker Feb 2002