Shiraz – Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra 750ml

Tasting Note: Starting October last year, Penfolds began releasing its much-loved ‘bin’ wines alongside its blue-chips, such as Grange shiraz and Bin 707 cabernet sauvignon. Previously they’d split the release over March and October. However, in February they snuck out a mini-release of the 2013 vintages of Bin 128 and Bin 138. Under winemaker Peter Gago, we’ve seen a finessing of the Penfolds style in regard to brighter fruit and increasingly sympathetic oak. The new Bin 128 reflects this, albeit in the rich, fleshy style of the warm 2013 vintage. It’s a distinctly Penfolds expression of cool-climate shiraz – richly layered and fairly tannic but elegantly structured, with a long life ahead of it. Score – 96. (Chris Shanahan, goodfood.com.au, April 2015)