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Tasting notes
This is pure brilliance, just Australian Cabernet Sauvignon at its best, brushed velvet tannins offer texture and grip, emphasising vibrant cassis, black cherry and ripe blueberry fruit. This has shoulders and muscles, with cocoa, cola, espresso, fragrant bay, slate, cool ash, crushed graphite, grilled rosemary, rose hip. Serious, building in character with a few hours in a carafe, this is confident with no intention of going anywhere soon. Unfined and unfiltered, just racking every few months during ageing. 100% new American oak, Peter Gago chief winemaker.
Critic scores
Average Score
Richard Hemming MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Dark crimson. Salty, savoury, ambitious. Very long-term wine. Spiky and edgy. Lots of minerals and uncompromising tannins. (JR)
(aged in 100% new American oak): Glass-staining ruby. Powerful, smoky aromas of singed plum, cassis, cherry-vanilla and candied rose, with a peppery topnote. Densely packed dark fruit flavors display liqueur-like intensity and pick up licorice, spicecake and floral pastille nuances with air. Youthfully firm tannins give shape and grip to an expansive, sweet, wonderfully persistent finish. (JR)
16 months in 100% new American oak. Barossa Valley, Padthaway, Coonawarra, Wrattonbully, Adelaide Hills. TA 6.5 g/l, pH 3.66. Super rich fruit – none of the greenness of the Bin 169. Very new world, very plump fruit. Tender yet structural. Rich vanilla oak on the finish. Appreciably Australian, this – has that jammy richness. Forceful and juicy. (RH)
About the producer
Penfolds is Australia’s most famous wine producer, known best for their iconic top wine, Grange. First produced commercially in 1952, Grange has since gone on to become one of the world’s most famous fine wines. In 2001, the wine was listed as an Australian heritage icon.