Penfolds Bin 180 Coonawarra Cabernet Shiraz Gift Box 2021

Very deep, dense purple-red colour; the bouquet wonderfully clear, deep cassis cabernet, bell-clear and unencumbered by new oak. Traces of nutmeg and violet, lavender and rose. Extreme intensity of flavour, the concentration is other-worldly. A great wine! (57% cabernet, 43% shiraz, from Penfolds vineyard blocks 10 & 5. 16 months in French oak hogsheads, all one year old and none new.)

To celebrate their 180^th anniversary, Penfolds have released something rather special. This is a sumptuous wine, with immaculate balance, bright acidity, silky tannins, and an alluring finish. A complete wine, one which will provide immense pleasure for the next thirty years.

There must have been a strong compulsion for Penfolds to create a bold and bombastic blend to commemorate its 180th anniversary, and I love that it chose a very different and compelling path, highlighting not the grandeur of the warmer regions of South Australia in new American oak but the definition and tension of Coonawarra in the epic and cool 2021 season, sensitively framed in seasoned French oak. The definitive Australian blend has been recreated here with classic, fine-boned precision, singing with all the lifted brightness of this cool, traditional season. The crunchy redcurrant and blackcurrant fruit of cabernet sauvignon is perfectly integrated with the blackberries of shiraz. Fine-grained, limestone-mineral tannins like only Coonawarra can conjure are perfectly harmonised with the structural support of French oak. The result is one of the finest wines of the modern era of Penfolds and the epitome and exemplar that less is indeed oh so very much more.

Minty, long and lingering, bold-fruited but elegant, strung suitably with tannin, the styling classic, the quality likewise. This is an exquisite red wine. Red, blue and black berried fruits run in a constant, irrepressible stream, picking up tannin and momentum as they run, without slowing, through to a finish that is so long, it has a beauty of its own. Call it a commemorative release, or a special bin, the nomenclature doesn’t matter. This is a Coonawarra cabernet-shiraz blend of the highest quality. It doesn't just express the region; it understands it. With this Bin 180 commemorative release, Penfolds hasn't just made a wine; it's made history.