Last week I tried the latest Penfolds Bin series releases at the Magill Estate Cellar Door, which was during the limited time they are all available for tasting there. The drinking windows listed here are that suggested by Penfolds on their website literature, and all the wines were served in Reidel magnum glasses.
2013 Penfolds Bin 51 Riesling (Eden Valley, 11% alc, now-2020): Bottled under screwcap. Sourced from the Woodbury and High Eden Vineyards. Very pale straw/green. Quite pithy, peaty and dry, typical of the label and style, still a little sulphur presence here too; the fruit is slightly grassy this vintage with brown lime, lemon and apple, a little struck flint and slate. A dry entry leads to a powerful mid-palate full of citrus, the texture both crunchy and creamy as it moves into a long, lingering finish with crisp apple. A touch cooler in style than the previous excellent vintage, it's almost as good.
2013 Penfolds Bin 311 Chardonnay (Tumbarumba, 13% alc, now-2020): Bottled under screwcap. Very pale straw/green. There's still some sulphur on the nose which is sweet with lime and melon fruit and toasty/spicy oak in the background; the palate's spicy and peachy, with little touches of lime and apple at times, finishing crisp and minerally. It's a solid wine, but on the dull side - in terms of where it sits in the Penfolds hierarchy and in value for money compared to other local chardonnay (including their own Cellar Reserve & Thomas Hyland wines) it misses the mark badly once again. If Penfolds want this to be considered the white equivalent of Bin 389, they have to get serious about improving the wine's quality and consistency, otherwise it will continue to be an underachiever.
2013 Penfolds Bin 23 Pinot Noir (Adelaide Hills, 14% alc, now-2018): Bottled under screwcap. Light to medium red with a hint of purple. Lots of sweet cherries, plum sauce and spice on the nose, some lemony oak and for the first time in the wine's history that typical Penfolds lift, although it's more like nail polish in the EA spectrum. The palate's just as spicy, with lots of lip puckering acidity and bright cherry fruit, finishing clean and crisp but also fractionally hot. Easily the most convincing Bin 23 made, still a short-term wine though.
2012 Penfolds Bin 9 Cabernet Sauvignon (McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek, Wrattonbully, Barossa, Padthaway, Barossa Valley and Coonawarra, 14.5% alc, now-2025): Bottled under screwcap. Medium to almost dark red/purple. Sweet nose full of sugar coated cranberries & redcurrants and coffee/malty oak, a little menthol appearing with breathing; the palate's medium-weight, quite dry and slightly minty, the oak slightly leading the red fruits but generally well balanced. It's solid, but isn't anything that much more than an entry-level standard wine in my book.
2012 Penfolds Bin 2 Shiraz Mourvedre (Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Padthaway, 14.5% alc, now-2020): Bottled under screwcap. 89% Shiraz & 11% Mourvedre. Medium to dark red. Attractive, fruit-sweet and spicy nose of plums and black cherries, cinnamon and other ground spices, a touch of rum & raisin chocolate. The palate is just over medium-weight and just as attractive, with plum, mixed spices and bitter chocolate, finishing dry with thick, velvety tannins and malty oak. A real surprise packet for me, one of the best wines of the day and notably better than the Bin 138; an early drinker though.
2012 Penfolds Bin 8 Cabernet Shiraz (Barossa Valley, Wrattonbully, McLaren Vale, Padthaway and Langhorne Creek, 14.5% alc, now-2020): Bottled under screwcap. 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Shiraz. Medium-ish red, paler than I was expecting. Opens with nail polish, cherries and lemony/sherbet oak, more creamy coffee, earth and smoke with breathing; a soft entry leads to a spicy mid-palate with lots of acidity and minty fruit, finishing dry with chalky tannins. Not bad, it reminds me of the old Koonunga Hill blends when they used to be decent.
2012 Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz (Coonawarra, 14.5% alc, 2014-2028): Bottled under screwcap. Medium red/purple. Smells attractive, full of red currants, sweet plum and spicy/coffee oak, some black pepper and mint with breathing; the medium-weight palate opens with a bang, but the fruit alarmingly drops away from what is otherwise a decent acid and tannin structure. It's not horrible, but I can understand Philip White's criticism of this wine; in a good vintage Bin 128 should have a bigger core of fruit than usual, something medium to full weight, and this doesn't remotely come close. Where has the best Coonawarra Shiraz fruit gone? Is there another Bin 620 on the way?
2012 Penfolds Bin 138 Shiraz Grenache Mataro (Barossa Valley, 14.5% alc, 2015-2025): Bottled under screwcap. 66% Shiraz, 23% Grenache, 11% Mataro. Medium red. Red liquorice, red jubes and sweet, lemony/sherbet oak on the nose; the palate's light to medium-weight and slightly smoky, with grippy, chalky tannins on the finish, not as thick, soft or long as the Bin 2 Shiraz Mourvedre . I was expecting a lot more from this wine - a lot more grenache for openers, which with the notable exception of the 1998 seems to take the lead in the better vintages (even the 2010 when the grenache was decimated by a November heatwave). This should have been a top vintage of this label, and I found it a little underwhelming.
2011 Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz (McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley and Adelaide, 14.5% alc, now-2025): Bottled under screwcap. Medium to dark red/purple. The first bottle was badly oxidised and quickly replaced. The fresh bottle was cheesy at first, but it blows off with breathing to reveal plum, red and black liquorice, ground spices and obvious VA lift, some coconut & boiled lollies with breathing. The palate's just over medium-weight, and is on the green/sour side, showing all the struggles of a wet, early maturing vintage; the usual Penfolds magic in these tough circumstances didn't come to the rescue here.
2011 Penfolds Bin 150 Marananga Shiraz (Barossa Valley, 14.5% alc, now-2025): Bottled under screwcap. Medium to very dark red. Like the first bottle of the Bin 28, this smells slightly mousy and oxidised, not a good sign; it is spicy with lots of grippy tannin and cherry/plum fruit, touches of graphite, pan fried herbs and malty oak, but is also green and pulls up surprisingly short. Matthew Jukes said in his review that the wine from this wet vintage doesn't deserve the Bin 150 label; on this form I agree, it doesn't come remotely close to measuring up to the high standard of the inaugural three vintages. Like the Bin 28, the prematurely oxidised state of the bottle doesn't inspire any confidence it will cellar that well either.
2011 Penfolds Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon (McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley, Robe and Coonawarra, 14.3% alc, now-2025): Bottled under cork. Medium to dark red. Very herbaceous nose, but green in the context of cabernet more than the wet vintage, cigarette ash, menthol, coal and blackcurrant, peppermint with breathing. A soft entry leads to a big build up of chewy tannin and teeth-scraping acid, there's a little heat here, but it finishes very chalky and fine, a little saltiness creeping in at the very end. A decent result for the tough vintage, a wine that's consistent in style with the most recent vintages of Bin 407 and one of the better wines today; but again, it's an early drinker.
2011 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz (McLaren Vale and Barossa Valley, 14.5% alc, 2015-2030): Bottled under screwcap. Medium to dark red. Lots of lovely red fruits and spices immediately leap from the glass, plum, five spice, liquorice and earth, cherry cola with breathing; the palate's big and spicy, a huge mid-palate with some minty heat and tannins that are notably bigger but softer than Bin 407, finishing with coffee oak. Easily the best of the new Bin level releases this year: forget the 'Baby Grange' moniker, this is 'Baby Bin 707'; it has definitely benefited from the decision not to make that wine, a decision that arguably should also have been made in 2009.
Cheers,
Ian
