Simon Morris writes my name is Simon Morris. I live in Goulburn, N.S.W., Australia. I am a husband, father, and grandfather. I am a veterinarian on the verge of total retirement – I say verge of – I enjoy my profession and standing down is proving hard. I am an oenophile who has been collecting and cellaring wine since I was eighteen years old, inspired to do so by my father and his love of wine. I enjoy gardening (especially roses and vegetables). I am into dinner parties (I am fortunate enough to be married to a wife who is a terrific cook). I get great pleasure from family, the fellowship of friends, from life in general, nature especially and my good mate, Eric the Grey (our cat). I could go on but the spec for the bio/description was “brief”. This is as brief as I can be.
Recollections brought on by reflections of resilience
The fire raged through the wine cellar. It seemed all would be lost. That was in 2015. Just under 3,000 bottles suffered the worst possible fate – being cooked alive. I can still hear the corks popping and the bottles exploding as the fire engulfed the cellar. The fire brigade concluded that the fire started from and electrical short brought on by a possum chewing through electrical wiring.
A few bottles of wine were recovered from the ashes, along with the charred body of the suspect possum. Wines under cork fared better than those under Stelvin. Around thirty Penfolds Granges appeared to come through the conflagration unscathed, lying in their charred wooden wine boxes, their cellophane or tissue paper wrappings in pristine condition. Unbelievable.
I carefully stored all the rescued wines in a rented storage locker and in 2016, my sons took the Granges to the Penfolds Re-corking Clinic held in Sydney. Amazingly, all but two passed as sound after being meticulously examined, topped up, re-corked, re-capsuled and certified.
One of those Granges was the 1984 Bin 95 Grange Hermitage, crafted by Don Ditter.
Fast track to the evening of February 24th, 2024, and a dinner my wife Marg and I held, titled An Evening at Dag End Celebrating Life & Events from Forty Years Ago. It was a grand meal, shared with a couple of mates, one of whom had travelled through time and space with me for over fifty years.
Marg carefully crafted the menu, and I paired the wines from our newly built cellar.
Among the wines on the dance card for the main course was that fire surviving 1984 Bin 95 Grange Hermitage.
While the conversation flowed with ease, and the guests tucked into the wines and meal with gusto, I looked on as I took a sip of the Grange and sloshed it around in my mouth. I became mesmerised and detached as myriad thoughts suddenly began to flood my mind.
As the thoughts flowed, I was also conscious of the wine. Its nose hinted of stewed plums and chocolate. Then came the entry onto my front palate – mouth filling dark fruits, hints of cedar, my old school wooden pencil case, cigar, pine shavings and tannins. The wine then slipped to my middle palate producing goosebumps as it rolled to the back of my palate leaving a long, juicy caudalie that seemed to last for ages. I closed my eyes and sat blindly entranced, tingling all over before coming back to reality and the ebb and flow of conversation.
It was not so much that the Grange was a delicious wine, I have drunk great wines every bit its equal or better over the years. But it was The Wine of the Moment. As I sat entranced by the wine, I realized that juxtaposed to the birth of the 1984 Grange Hermitage 40 years ago, I had won the hand of my wife, and she married me in that same year. From that marriage came four beautiful children and six magical grandchildren. As I sat in my trance, mesmerised by the wine in my glass, I looked at it, and I saw so much more that came out of 1984 (it was amongst other things also the year I opened my veterinary clinic). The wine had risen from the ashes, survived, was certified sound, it recalibrated in the new cellar, and it went on to be drunk with honour that night. It was a metaphor for resilience, just like a good sound marriage that plugs on through thick and thin. Its sacrifice for our pleasure highlighted that 1984 was not just a good year for wine, it was an exceptionally good year for it led to an enormous and quite beautiful change to the rest of my life.
Had the Great Cellar Fire of 2015 not occurred, the 1984 Bin 95 Grange would still be just that, but without the metaphor for resilience born of its experience with fire (although we would almost certainly have drunk it in 2024 because of its vintage) and I am not convinced that the same appreciation for where I am today would have grabbed me so on the night because the magic of the wine’s fire survival would not have been there to provide the metaphor. It would simply have been a well-crafted, cellared, and aged wine commemorating a forty-year wedding anniversary.
I believe wine is an integral part of what constitutes a good life. It is nature personified. It enhances eloquence. It evokes memories. It is made for sharing but equally it can be enjoyed alone. Paired with food, shared with family and friends, wine provides le zeste ultime pour toutes les occasions.
On the night of February 24th, 2024 thanks to the 1984 Penfolds Bin 95 Grange that survived the Great Cellar Fire of 2015, I experienced The Wine Moment I’ll Never Forget.
Note on attached image: the picture is of the wine box found in the charred remains of the cellar after the Great Cellar Fire of 2015. In that box lies the very bottle of 1984 Penfolds Bin 95 Grange (third wine from the left) that subsequently went on to be certified, then drunk on the night of February 24th, 2024. Note how pristine the bottles and wrappings appear to be. As I said in my essay, unbelievable.
