Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2023

Always a star of the Collection, year after year. The blend, as it almost always is, falls marginally in favour of Cabernet – 51% Cab to 49% Shiraz this time. The fruit hails from McLaren Vale, Padthaway and the Barossa Valley. Maturation is in American oak hogsheads for one year, one third of which are new. A triumph for the vintage. Opaque purple, this is lifted, generous and really rather exciting. Glorious aromatics, there are notes of plums, aniseed, tobacco leaves, dark chocolate, espresso, blackberries, coffee beans, with a touch of blueberries peeking through. Black pudding and chocolate mud cake may not sound like the most enticing combination, but here it works wonderfully well. Seamless in structure with bright energy and immaculate balance, this is very long. There is fine acidity here, and even finer tannins with a sleekness to them. Early complexity is very much evident, and we can expect that to really develop further in the coming years. Power, yes, but this is also effortlessly elegant. Delicious now, this will surely drink beautifully for the next fifteen years, considerably longer if you really do have the patience. Love it.

Ken Gargett

Contributor at Winepilot

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.

Wine writer and critic