Penfolds RWT Bin 798 Barossa Valley Shiraz 2019
- 95
- $200
- Drink by: 2023 - 2040
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Penfolds winemakers work to a particular style with RWT. It has to be “opulent and fleshy,” a counter to Grange’s “muscular and assertive” ways. French oak with a high-ish degree of new barrels apparent has also been a feature of the wine since its launch with the ’97 vintage. And, so it continues in the 2019 release, although Penfolds watchers might note that at 57%, the level of new oak is slowly receding. Our taste for new oak is not what it was, and that’s a good thing.
A smooth operator, RWT impresses with its depth of Barossan intensity and shiraz fruit concentration. It’s packed tight from aroma to flavour with layers of dusty black berries, warm earth, sage and thyme, a touch savoury, too. But, above all, the wine is all about an abiding Barossa DNA: a boldness, density, with a lasting impact. Once, such a wine from Penfolds would have been dressed in American oak but under French oak the accent is more polished. It’s glossy and smooth, supple tannins running the line and length. The winemaker suggests a peak drinking window from 2025 to 2050. I think I would be calling it a little earlier, just to be sure.
Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.
