Penfolds

Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2012

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  Vintage 2012
  97 points www.winecompanion.com.au

Deep, dense crimson-purple; the profound bouquet offers every kind of black fruits imaginable, large and small, yet somehow leaves a space and air in the mix for more complex secondary characters to emerge given time - lots of it. The palate takes all this, and adds to it with barrel ferment characters introducing licorice and touches of wild herb. This wine fully lives up to the great expectations held of it (and the vintage). Arguably the bargain of the release.

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  Vintage 2012
  96 points www.tysonstelzer.com

Every year I have the opportunity to judge Bin 389 pre-release in The Great Australian Red competition, and it never shows at its best at this young age. It’s predictably closed up like a trap on the eve of its new, early release date of mid-October 2014. Vigorous decanting and hours and even days of coaxing slowly draw out impressive layers of black fruits and reticent violet perfume, set within a rigid and finely strung cage of impeccable tannin structure. It is plainly apparent from the outset is that this is one of the benchmark, long-lived releases in the grand, 42 year lineage of Bin 389. Do not miss it and, above all, do not dare open a bottle in the next decade, and preferably the next two. This year, a blend of 54% cabernet sauvignon and 46% shiraz from Wrattonbully, Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek and Robe.