Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2018 Penfolds

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<10 tasting notes

97p by Pekka Nuikki / Editor of the Fine Wine Magazines and Champagne Magazine
96p by James Halliday / BWW2024 Finalist
96p by Ken Gargett
96p by Huon Hooke / BWW2024 Finalist
98p by Andrew Caillard MW / BWW2024 Finalist

Tasting note

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Written Notes

Given how well Penfold’s do their blends, it is a little surprising there are not more in the Collection. A perennial favourite, 389 celebrates its 60th anniversary with this release. Time in American oak hogsheads, 38% new. 57% Shiraz, 43% Cabernet. An assortment of regions – McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley, Coonawarra, Padthaway, Robe and Wrattonbully.

Allow me to start these notes by confessing that Penfold's do supply us with an all-info booklet. I'm always careful to do all my tasting and notes before looking at it, so as to avoid preconceptions and the power of suggestion. It is unfailingly interesting to then compare notes to ascertain whether or not one is thinking along the same lines. In this case, Penfold's have included a tasting note they “heard” for this 389, though no attribution is offered.

"Petrichor aromas graduating to silkworm-eaten mulberry leaf". I can further confess that if I had tasted a thousand bottles of this wine, I would never have come up with that (I had to look up ‘petrichor’). Mulberries perhaps, but a silkworm-eaten leaf? Are they different from untouched leaves? What about some other Attenboroughesque moment when something else chows down on the leaf? Would that be different?

For me, as mundane as it may now sound, wonderfully aromatic with chocolate, blackfruits, new leather, spices, mud cake. Warm earth and black cherries. A wine of balance, complexity and serious length. An absolute star. Good intensity, a flick of underlying acidity. There is a sweet and sour aspect to the wine. The more time in the glass, the more emerged and the longer the wine seemed. A wine with a great future ahead. 96.

- Ken Gargett

The 60th anniversary of Bin 389. It is a six-region 57/43% blend, matured in American hogsheads (38% new). A perennial favourite of mine, with great colour and a supple mouthfeel that gives the wine a touch of elegance, underlined by the fluid, flawless balance and length. 14.5% alc, screwcap 96 points, drink to 2040, $100

- James Halliday / BWW2024 Finalist

Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz (2018; AUD $100) is another sumptuous wine that shows more dominant cabernet than usual, and again considerate oak handling allows the fruit free expression. Long-term Bin 389 buyers complain about the price going out of their reach in recent years, but the fact remains that the wine is outstanding today, and fully justifies the ask.

- Huon Hooke / BWW2024 Finalist

Deep crimson. Intense pure blackcurrant, blackberry aromas with dark chocolate notes. Generously proportioned wine with dense inky cassis, blackberry mulberry fruits, plentiful chocolaty tannins, mocha espresso oak complexity, attractive mid-palate viscosity and superb mineral length. Finishes grainy firm. A classic powerful Bin 389 year with superb fruit complexity, density and attack. Should last the distance. Seal; screwcap 2025-2045 14.5% alc 98 points

An Australian wine tradition that rarely disappoints. The 2018 highlights exceptional sourcing and the beautiful partnership between cabernet sauvignon and shiraz where the wine represents far more than the sum of its parts. A landmark wine of the 2020 collection offering collectors and drinkers the quintessential Penfolds experience.

McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley, Padthaway, Coonawarra, Robe, Wrattonbully

Around 18 months in 38% new and 62% seasoned American oak hogsheads

- Andrew Caillard MW / BWW2024 Finalist

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