TN: 1998 Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz

[n4sir]

1998 Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz, Coonawarra (cork): 14% alc. Medium to dark garnet/brick. Very strange and unexpected, quite earthy, oily, leathery and vegetal with some overripe rum & raisin and more disturbing mousy characters underneath; overall it’s quite sweet and sour with a bitter, horrible finish. There is something seriously wrong with this bottle – despite a perfect cork, fill level and spinning capsule it's clearly premoxed.



Cheers,
Ian

[GraemeG]

Looks scary enough, sure: I've got shoes that colour!
Not sure you should say a 17-year-old fairly basic Penfolds red is "prematurely" oxisised; the noun looks right to judge by the colour, but the adjective is ambitous.
I think all the 98 Penfolds "beneath 389" are mostly shot by now, perhaps the random bottle excepted.
cheers,
Graeme

[redwhiteandrose]

Erm.....adverb + verb, actually

[GraemeG]

Don't agree that 'oxidised' can be a verb.
I should have said 'calling it "prematurely oxidised wine": I agree with the second adjective but not the first'.

Going to school through the 70s the grammar we were taught was perhaps a littlemore comprehensive than those who followed us in the 80s & 90s, but nowhere near as rigorous as that learned by students in the decades before.
In corporate-speak these days, of course, there's barely a verb to be found anywhere, however hard you 'workshop the project'.
cheers,
Graeme

[redstuff]

oxidisable is the adjective.

[phillisc]

Slow news day chaps...not much happening on the eastern seaboard this AM

Shit I have enough trouble answering the phone, nevermind if its verb, noun or adjective on the line

Cheers
Craig

PS agree that most 128s that I have had over 30 years are 'shot' (regardless of the vintage, a wine that Pennies have never got right) but had an 86 Bin 28 on the weekend...sublime!

[felixp]

yea, never been too sure about Coonawarra shiraz, including 128.
but the 98 nBin 28 is still very much alive, and should be for another decade.

[redwhiteandrose]

Oops! I meant an adjective. Adverb + adjective.

Graham, in your example 'workshop the program' workshop becomes the verb. Language is ever changing!

Sorry for the mistake and the thread drift. Back to the Penfolds.....

[catchnrelease]

Basically it dun oxidiseded all fast like.

[GraemeG]

Graham, in your example 'workshop the program' workshop becomes the verb. Language is ever changing!

Yes, precisely, and this technique of "verbing the noun" is the problem.
Exactly the reason why so much of what is written and spoken nowadays is so unintelligible and clag-like.
Whole rows of nouns all stapled together in a literary sludge.
Orwell would be proud (of his foresight)!
You read things like "I was gifted a bottle of over-the-hill Bin 128" for example. There are whole rafts of verbs which might convey so much more information; given, donated, bequeathed, compensated, but no, instead we'll take the noun 'gift' and 'verbify' it, making the sentence stick in the throat, and incidentally removing all the nuance a real, well-chosen verb might have conveyed.

I wouldn't last a day in a corporate HR department, which is why I spend so little time in ours...
cheers,
Graeme

[n4sir]

Looks scary enough, sure: I've got shoes that colour!
Not sure you should say a 17-year-old fairly basic Penfolds red is "prematurely" oxisised; the noun looks right to judge by the colour, but the adjective is ambitous.
I think all the 98 Penfolds "beneath 389" are mostly shot by now, perhaps the random bottle excepted.
cheers,
Graeme

FWIW I thought the 1998 Bin 28 & Bin 138 that I tried earlier this year were still in good shape. Bin 407 is on the radar to be tried again soon, also have a stray Koonunga Hill that John Duval once said was the last vintage of KH to bother cellaring.

I contacted Treasury and sent the wine & cork back for analysis - verdict was premox due to a cork fault which confirms it was a bad bottle. Looking over my previous notes of this wine I had picked up some bottle variation before, so maybe I shouldn't be that surprised. My thanks to Sparky's crew for generously assessing the bottle and deciding to replace it.

A sample of the returned wine was analysed for TCA by GCMS. The wine did not return any detectable TCA. Senior winemaking assessed the wine and found it to be extremely oxidised and suspect the wine was like that when it opened. They could not determine any taint under the oxidation.

The cork although sound, appears over porous, suggesting the wine was oxidised due to a cork fault.

Cheers,
Ian

[Hunter]

All my 98 128's have been shot..
The 1990 bin 28's.. thats a different story. ..
Amazing !

[Bytown Rick]

I had a 1996 Bin 128 last night, and it was in very good shape. Nice, mature wine.

Rick