The Auswine Forum

Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz 1994 real time

This is what surely must be yet another relic of the great even Penfolds mid 90s years. Still quite crimson with a slightly bricking rim, there's a lovely nose of retiring oak, still with some obvious vigour and a noticable bundle of lovely secondary aromas including liquorice, the angular whiff of old toolboxes and a prick of leather. Now that I think of it, there's a bit of vanilla coming to the fore, and a cigarry quality is emerging. Whilst there's a bit of alcohol poking out, it has quite a lovely nose with some decent fruit component still obvious, probably a touch of cherry and blackberry if I had to pick it.
The palate is quite balanced and persistent, the length quite impressive. Medium bodied and modest with plenty of understated charm, this is a great little wine that's punching well above it's weight, just as it's brothers and sisters of the same era are doing. I can only hope that the current batch of 04s manage to hold up as well.

Edited: A few hours later this has become very mellow and very distinctively Barossa-like (be curious to know what proportion of this is Barossa or maybe I am just imagining). Perhaps a touch less complex, more broadened out and the tannins actually a fair bit more obvious - the wine is chewy in a sense. Nonetheless, still good stuff and I feel would go for a few more years yet. The 94 (and more the case 96) Penfolds seem to be real cellaring champions, this being no exception.

I picked up quite a few of the 1995's cheap, and although the vintage isnt the best on paper the were damn good drinks for $13 a bottle.

All gone now though

I also had a few 1997's a couple of years back that were drinking very nicely at the time.

Had a '96 a couple of nights ago, which was punching well above its weight ... one of my top 10 for the year to date. Picking up on Wayno's comment, it didn't seem at all Barossa-like .... a lot more elegant rather than a big in-your-face stereotypical Barossa shiraz ...

I probably should qualify my Barossa statement - I find Barossa character distinctive in a particular vanilla sweetness and cigary quality. To me, Barossa need not mean full bodied, in fact I've found many examples of it actually being quite medium bodied. Maybe it's just old memories of barrel halls in the Barossa from fragmentary childhood experience as well.
Nonetheless, I agree the 96 is brilliant, better than the 94 I think. 98 is also good. Pretty hard to go wrong with some cellared 28s from any of these three years and evidently the years adjoing them too, from some of the posts here.