2004 Penfolds Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz Bin 60A

Follow-on from the 1962! Half bottled under cork and half under screwcap. This was cork. Bottle 1 : Dark and glowing. Refined and punchy. Real structure and life. Lip-smacking. Zesty. Bottle 2 : Richer than the first bottle. Great stuff! Complete. Really glorious. (JR)

The release of the 2004 Bin 60A following the epic 1962 Bin 60A is old news now, but the wine was looking very fine indeed when I tasted it so I thought I’d add a note. Blended of 56% Coonawarra Cabernet from Block 20 and 44% Barossa Shiraz from Koonunga Hill Block 56G and Kalimna Blocks 4 and 14, the wine was matured in 100% new American oak hogsheads for 13 months. Very deep purple-black in color, it offers restrained notes of game, smoked meat, earth, blackberry and black currant liqueurs, yeast, marmite-toast plus whiffs of dried lavender, cedar and bark. Very crisp, very tight and very firm, this taut medium-bodied wine is still all structure at this stage, going very long and earthy in the finish. Give it time and consider broaching it from 2014. It should drink well into the 2030s if not beyond. With a lot of changes happening around the Foster’s Group, it is business as usual at Penfolds…which seems to operate within its own world. But this is no small world. The vineyard holdings here are vast and the connections with growers go back generations. Chief winemaker Peter Gago is the very well spoken front-man for the production team backed-up Kym Schroeter in charge of the whites and Steve Lienert crafting some very fine, consistent and sometimes inspired reds. If Champagne is all about the art of blending, then Penfolds is the Champagne of Australian wine. Those that think large companies producing wines that emphasize blending can’t make great wines need to think about the Champagne model or simply try some of Penfolds top wines to become believers. That said – check out their recent single vineyard release: the very special 2004 Block 42 Kalimna Cabernet Sauvignon, the first release of a wine made purely from this 100+ year old single block (perhaps the oldest block of Cabernet in the world?) since 1996. Importer: Foster’s Wine Estates Americas, Napa, CA; tel. (707) 259-4500

Fermentation completed in medium toast new 300-litre oak hogsheads. 13 months barrel maturation. 56% Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon Block 20, 44% Barossa Shiraz: Koonunga Hill Block 56G & Kalimna 4 and 14 . Intense, youthful, purple color! Tangy berries and minty nose. Very good fruit and prevalent oak. Advised to wait, but it is excellent now. Full flavour, layers of fruit, mint, oak, like hitting a flavour tune fork and feeling it reverberate on your palate: zesty and lively and young. (VD)