Hi,
I am attending a Penfolds wine dinner with Peter Gago and was wondering if anyone had any hard hitting questions they would like me to ask. I don't really drink Penfolds wine - the good stuff's too expensive and the cheap stuff's too ordinary (imho!).
Cheers.
Penfolds night with winemaker
-
pokolbinguy
- Posts: 165
- Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:37 pm
Hard hitting - how about this?:
What the hell's going on with the Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon?
Have they settled on any kind of blueprint or style because frankly it's been lacking one since the 1997 vintage. When it was launched with the 1990 vintage the idea was to produce a consistent wine that showcased pure Cabernet fruit rather than being a Cabernet equivalent of Grange, but that idea seems to have been lost. The wine's so inconsistent it's just not funny, and the extremes have more to do with fruit selection/winemaker inputs rather than vintage variation.
1998 has ripe cooler climate fruit, 2001 is green and peppery, 2002 is baked/warm climate and heavily oaked, 2000 & 2003 has the aborted Bin 707 dumped in it, and so on. It's a "Forest Gump" wine - you never know what you're gonna get. I'm left with an impression it's being made up of leftovers from Bin 389 & the (ironically cheaper) Thomas Hyland, or that they're basically winging it.
The only consistency is the price - it's a joke they're still charging more than the rest of the standard Bin series reds, and that's despite the fact that there's now an excess of Cabernet fruit available (in stark contrast when it was first made). They can't blame the additional cost on French oak either as Bin 128 is 100% French, so the extra cost is now unwarranted.
This is one wine they should seriously put under the microscope - selling Cabernet in this glut isn't getting any easier, and the recent history of this wine is seriously flawed.
Cheers,
Ian
What the hell's going on with the Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon?
Have they settled on any kind of blueprint or style because frankly it's been lacking one since the 1997 vintage. When it was launched with the 1990 vintage the idea was to produce a consistent wine that showcased pure Cabernet fruit rather than being a Cabernet equivalent of Grange, but that idea seems to have been lost. The wine's so inconsistent it's just not funny, and the extremes have more to do with fruit selection/winemaker inputs rather than vintage variation.
1998 has ripe cooler climate fruit, 2001 is green and peppery, 2002 is baked/warm climate and heavily oaked, 2000 & 2003 has the aborted Bin 707 dumped in it, and so on. It's a "Forest Gump" wine - you never know what you're gonna get. I'm left with an impression it's being made up of leftovers from Bin 389 & the (ironically cheaper) Thomas Hyland, or that they're basically winging it.
The only consistency is the price - it's a joke they're still charging more than the rest of the standard Bin series reds, and that's despite the fact that there's now an excess of Cabernet fruit available (in stark contrast when it was first made). They can't blame the additional cost on French oak either as Bin 128 is 100% French, so the extra cost is now unwarranted.
This is one wine they should seriously put under the microscope - selling Cabernet in this glut isn't getting any easier, and the recent history of this wine is seriously flawed.
Cheers,
Ian
Last edited by n4sir on Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Forget about goodness and mercy, they're gone.
n4sir wrote:Hard hitting - how about this?:
What the hell's going on with the Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon?
Cheers,
Ian
I fairly sure it is not a myth that the 1990 was intended to be a Koonunga Hill companion - but it kept scoring much the same as the 707 in the shows so they made it a Bin range - inclined to agree it is all over the place which is why after having a retrospective of it for a while I don't have any left and I coldn't be bothered buy it again especially at stupid prices they are trying to get for it.
Cheers
David J
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake 1Ti 5:23
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake 1Ti 5:23
I can understand the gap its supposed to fill from a marketing perspective - no straight cabernet between Koonunga-H and 707 (at least until T Hyland came along), but I agree that it's burdened with a pricing legacy from its launch era, when cabernet was all the rage and commanded a premium.
They've killed off labels before, of course - Clare Estate red springs to mind - but unless they want to turn Penfolds into the Shiraz label I imagine they're still going to want a $30 cabernet.
Just need to do a better job with it. I haven't bought vintages since the early 90s either.
regards,
Graeme
They've killed off labels before, of course - Clare Estate red springs to mind - but unless they want to turn Penfolds into the Shiraz label I imagine they're still going to want a $30 cabernet.
Just need to do a better job with it. I haven't bought vintages since the early 90s either.
regards,
Graeme
-
cuttlefish
- Posts: 1014
- Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2005 1:46 pm
- Location: Sunbury
n4sir wrote:Hard hitting - how about this?:
What the hell's going on with the Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon?
Have they settled on any kind of blueprint or style because frankly it's been lacking one since the 1997 vintage. When it was launched with the 1990 vintage the idea was to produce a consistent wine that showcased pure Cabernet fruit rather than being a Cabernet equivalent of Grange, but that idea seems to have been lost. The wine's so inconsistent it's just not funny, and the extremes have more to do with fruit selection/winemaker inputs rather than vintage variation.
1998 has ripe cooler climate fruit, 2001 is green and peppery, 2002 is baked/warm climate and heavily oaked, 2000 & 2003 has the aborted Bin 707 dumped in it, and so on. It's a "Forest Gump" wine - you never know what you're gonna get. I'm left with an impression it's being made up of leftovers from Bin 389 & the (ironically cheaper) Thomas Hyland, or that they're basically winging it.
The only consistency is the price - it's a joke they're still charging more than the rest of the standard Bin series reds, and that's despite the fact that there's now an excess of Cabernet fruit available (in stark contrast when it was first made). They can't blame the additional cost on French oak either as Bin 128 is 100% French, so the extra cost is now unwarranted.
This is one wine they should seriously put under the microscope - selling Cabernet in this glut isn't getting any easier, and the recent history of this wine is seriously flawed.
Cheers,
Ian
I reckon just throw a question mark on the end of the above and present that as your question...
Smack my [insert grape type here] up !
-
Mike Hawkins
- Posts: 2747
- Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:39 am