Looks like Australia’s most famous wine brand Penfolds has had quite an action-packed 175th-anniversary celebration, indeed!
First, they famously launched a collaborative Champagne project earlier last year with family-owned Champagne house Thiénot. Then, they also unveiled the 2019 Penfolds Collection wines just in August last year, and these include such pleasant sippers like the Grange, Yattarna, Magill Estate, Bin 707 Cabernet, RWT Shiraz, and St Henri.
Now, just two weeks into 2020, some of us in Kuala Lumpur were privileged enough to have a taste of the popular Adelaide wine house’s first Special Bin label bottling for almost a decade, as they are only released if ‘they offer something extra, different and unique,’ according to Penfolds.
The new Penfolds Special Bin 111A Shiraz 2016 is sourced from the fruit of two single-vineyard sites in the Clare and Barossa valleys (a couple of renowned wine-producing regions northeast of Adelaide, in South Australia). And you guessed it… this is the first Special Bin blend of Clare Valley and Barossa Valley fruit!
The end result is an opaque and silky powerhouse of deeply ripe blackberry, blueberry and dark cherry fruit delivered amid velvety and silky tannins. Powerful and elegant Clare Shiraz has been combined with powerful Western Barossa fruit to create a great full-bodied South Australian Shiraz.
The extreme age-worthiness of the wine follows the traditional values of Penfolds. The Clare Valley fruit makes up 54 percent of the blend. Aged in 100% new French oak, it’s a rich, luxuriously textured wine that’s packed with ripe fruit and finely textured tannins.
Incidentally, Penfolds has made 1,000 cases of the wine, and it is set to make an appearance at your favourite wine shops sometime in March, so do watch out for it!
