Bin 28 offers a showcase of warm-climate Australian Shiraz – ripe, robust and generously flavoured. First made in 1959, Bin 28 is named after the famous Barossa Valley Kalimna Vineyard purchased by Penfolds in 1945 and from which the wine was originally sourced. Today, Bin 28 is a multi-region, multi-vineyard blend, with the Barossa Valley always well represented.
Drinking Window: 2011 - 2030
Closure Type: Cork or screwcap
Vineyard Notes:
South Australia - with major parcels from Barossa Valley, Langhorne Creek & McLaren Vale.
A welcome wet winter and a moderate, dry spring encouraged steady early season growth, setting up for a text-book harvest. Cool and dry conditions during the start of summer were described as perfect, conducive to excellent flavour, colour and phenolic development. A record 15 day heatwave, starting on the 3rd March created a major interruption, inducing a vintage of two distinct halves - a statement pertaining to the profound differences in quality of fruit picked before and after the heat spell. Weighted-average vintage charts may not do justice to the South Australian harvest in 2008. Penfolds reds will.
Ageing: 12 months in seasoned American oak hogsheads.
Producer Tasting Notes:
COLOUR: A menacing and impenetrable black core.
NOSE: Classic Bin 28 fruits and maturation complexities. Satsuma conserve and a (very) faint cigar box background (oak or fruit ?). Aromas of a basking Sunday Roast and / or simmering Beef Bourgogne, shadowed by tumeric and dark Calamatta olive.
PALATE: Full-bodied. Assertive, but neither bullying with alcohol nor oak. Dense, great texture & layered - all bases covered. Blueberry Barossa fruits exposed - a la RWT! Christmas Cake mix or trifle? Perhaps the suggestion of brandy / custard favours the latter? The density, texture and depth of this wine is testament to the strength of the vintage.
