Penfolds Bin 138 Barossa Valley Grenache Shiraz Mataro 2023
- 94
- $60
- Drink by: 2025-2040
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This vintage, the blend is 56% Grenache, 38% Shiraz and 6% Mataro. Maturation was for a year in a mix of seasoned French and American oak hogsheads, with the different varieties blended just before bottling. A riveting purple, a wine of class which screams Barossa. Notes of chocolate, mocha, violets, coffee beans, licorice, cassis, and more chocolate. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a Cherry Ripe, and that would be almost every schoolkid in the country, will be immediately transported back to the days when that luscious choc/cherry flavour seemed the most decadent thing on earth. The wine continues with power, direction and focus, excellent balance and a persistent finish. There is juicy acidity here. A wine which will undoubtedly continue to build, develop and improve over the next ten to fifteen years. Even a brief twenty to thirty minutes in the glass saw it simply exploding with flavour and chocolatey goodness.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
