A venerable name not just through Australia, but the wide-reaching world of wine, Penfolds could comfortably (as beautifully stated by Angus Hughson from Vinous) be viewed as our country's equivalent to Château Lafite-Rothschild or Vega Sicilia; houses that have so wholly inspired and typified the unique style of their respective varietals for generation after generation. Whether it was the reign of Max Schubert, John Duval, or the current stewardship under Peter Gago where one jumped aboard, they have always managed to fuse consistency with innovation, no matter who's steering the ship.
One common assumption that can be easy to fall into is that the full-bodied Barossa power and heavy-handed tannin profiles are the immovable factor across their selections, but this weekend we hope to prove the true depth of their talents with our Saturday (16th) tasting between 12 and 2pm! Their excellent Eden Valley Riesling, Bin 311 and Yattarna Chardonnays will start things off, all showing wonderful mineral tension and fruit purity, before delving through a broad selection of famous reds, including Bin 28, 389, 407 and St Henri, plus their special FWT 585 Cabernet Blend grown over in France (not shown below)! To make things extra special, we'll be opening up the latest iterations of Bin 707 Cabernetand Grange Shiraz; a tasting fee of $50 will apply to try both of these.
We hope you can make it along and get a full view of this all-star lineup!
Penfolds - Specials & Tasting
Saturday 16th August
12 to 2pm
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Bin 51 Eden Valley Riesling 2025 -
$43 on special this week; $49 RRP
”Pale straw with a flash of green in the glass and a wonderfully pure aromatic profile of freshly squeezed limes, Bickford's lime cordial, lemongrass, Christmas lily, apple sorbet, makrut lime leaf, green apple and citrus rind. Taut yet expressive with citrus and apple fruits flowing freely on the palate, an impressive tubular palate shape and a sapid minerality. Finishes long, taut and impressively pure. The Bin 51 has been in fine form lately and this is another great showing.” - 95 Points, Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion
Bin 311 Chardonnay 2024 -
$52 on special this week; $59 RRP
”Pale straw with aromas of flint-struck white peach, nectarine and citrus fruits infused with hints of soft spice, clotted cream, nougat, almond meal, meadow flowers and stone. Initially creamy and mouth-filling, with a impressive fruit purity. There's an element of savoury restraint to its palate shape, with fine acidity lending propulsion, and textural filigree from a patina of fine, light phenolics. The finish is long, pure and precise. Great drinking all round here!” - 95 Points, Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion
Yattarna Chardonnay 2023 -
$199 on special this week; $239 RRP
"A wonderfully filigreed Yattarna. This release shows all the finesse that we've come to expect from the wine, with pure white peach, juicy nectarine, citrus and apple fruit tones. Hints of soft spice, hazelnut and meadow flowers. A light whisper of flint, creamy oak, oatmeal and biscuity tones meld together beautifully. The tension and interplay between fruit and sapid minerality is fascinating, with supple fruit flowing forth – all pure, mealy and complex. There's a slow glutamic ache of umami as it fades away with a sustained and enduring finish. A stunning, graceful wine, and one that is at the peak of its game." - 98 Points, Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion
"The 2023 Yattarna Chardonnay hails from Tumbarumba, Adelaide Hills and Tasmania, and leads with a restrained, composed and detailed display of fruit flavors and toasted spice complexity. This is a wine for the ages, one that shows well decades after release. I love the way this sits in the mouth, both weighty and waxy, with detail and levity as well. It has penetrating intensity without the heaviness of any one component. Texturally, the phenolic grip is chalky, with white flowers and fennel littered through the finish." - 97 Points, Erin Larkin, Robert Parker Wine Advocate
Bin 28 Shiraz 2023 -
$49 on special this week; $55 RRP
"A multi-region blend, always dominated by Barossa Valley fruit – this year 42%, along with Padthaway (31%) and McLaren Vale (27%) – to showcase ripe, powerful warm-climate South Australian Shiraz. Always matured for 12 months in American oak hogsheads, there’s more new wood this year (15%), but it wears it beautifully, and that firm tannic backbone promises to carry this already approachable wine through the next two decades. Mulberry pie aromas – inviting with lots of vanilla and sweet baking spices – joined by savoury olive brine, tarmac and liquorice. The fresh but concentrated palate has more of the same, along with dark chocolate-coated cherries. Really impressive already, with more to come; the star buy from this year’s collection." - 94 Points, Tina Gellie, Decanter
Bin 138 GSM 2023 -
$49 on special this week; $55 RRP
// Grenache (50%), Shiraz (44%), Mataro (6%)
"The 2023 Bin 138 is silky, spicy and medium-bodied, with attractively dry tannins to balance the sweetness from the fruit. There are earthy and root, exotic spice and mineral notes, with dark berry fruits. It's a blend of 56% Grenache, 38% Shiraz and the balance Mataro/Mouverdre, all components vinified separately, matured for 12 months in seasoned French and American oak hogsheads." - 93 Points, Erin Larkin, Robert Parker Wine Advocate
Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2023 -
$109 on special this week; $125 RRP
"Deep crimson. Perfumed violet, praline, blackcurrant/ blackberry aromas with inky/chinotto notes. Voluminous and sinuous with beautiful pure cassis, chinotto flavours, plentiful fine chalky al-dente tannins and well-balanced roasted chestnut/ marzipan/ vanilla notes. Builds up brambly firm at the finish. Lovely density, vinosity and flow. Drink now through to 2045." - 96 Points, Andrew Caillard MW, The Vintage Journal
"The 12 months in oak (33% new) adds a creamy coconut sheen to the generous mouthful of summer pudding berries, fleshy blue plums and more savoury tones of fennel salami, mocha and cigar box spice. Fine tannins, bright acidity and a firm structure deliver power and polish, already approachable but with a long life, and more complexity, ahead. A standout this vintage." - 96 Points, Tina Gellie, Decanter
St Henri Shiraz 2022-
$125 on special this week; $139 RRP
"Balanced and sumptuously rewarding. It might be the most immediately enjoyable St. Henri of all time! Rich, dark, mellow and superbly well-appointed, this is a crowd-pleaser with little visible astringency or muscle. Instead, this mille-feuille of red, blue, black and purple fruit is sensational, and it will enchant all-comers with its epic allure and precociousness. While we can dive into this pool now, the engine, which purrs away in the core, will keep this wine ticking over for at least three decades." - 19/20 Points, Matthew Jukes
"The 2022 St Henri Shiraz is a magnificent wine, which ages with grace and detail for many, many decades. Looking at this as a young wine, it shows exuberant fruit power, powerful structure and a cacophony of spices. However, with age, these wines become graceful and almost ethereal. In a recent tasting of 40 vintages of St Henri going back to 1958, the wine revealed itself to be one of patience, detail and elegance. The highlights undoubtedly were 1962, 1971, 1986, 1991 and 2010. These were wines for the ages, and this 2022 will be. The fruit is from Barossa Valley (39%), McLaren Vale (31%) and the balance from Padthaway, matured for 14 months in large, seasoned vats." - 96+ Points, Erin Larkin, Robert Parker Wine Advocate
Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon 2023 -
$125 on special this week; $139 RRP
"Sports a super-vibrant magenta-tinged crimson in the glass. Deep blackberry, black cherry and boysenberry fruits along with hints of baking spices, earth, cedar, olive tapenade, a light bramble note, black pepper and a beautiful floral top note sitting in the background at low volume. Silky and creamy in the mouth with impressive fruit weight and flow. The tannins are superfine and powdery, and the finish is long and true." - 95 Points, Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion
Both below available to taste on the day for a $50 fee
Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon 2023 -
$765 special price; $870 RRP
"This vintage hails from vineyards in McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley and Padthaway. Maturation is in American oak for a year and a half, all of it new. This release is a monumental wine. Impressive, exhibiting such length and exuberance. The highlight is a sweet core of dark cherry/chocolate. The colour is an opaque maroon while the nose opens with plums, chocolate (which never really abandons us), spices, bergamot, plenty of oak deftly handled, cassis, licorice, spices, nutmeg, cold tea, smoked meats, graphite and black cherries. Time in the glass saw the cassis/dark cherries/kirsch notes emerge more and more. There is refinement here, though it quickly morphs into a hedonistic energy, balance and focus, with fresh acidity running the length. This will easily sail through the next twenty to thirty years." - 98 Points, Ken Gargett, Wine Pilot
"Deep crimson with aromas of macerated blackberry, black cherry, blackcurrant, cassis and doris plum fruits with hints of cinnamon, nutmeg, blackforest cake and dried herbs. Notes of distant bramble, cedar, licorice and earth. For all its depth and latent power, I like the clarity and detail in this release. The fruit is on-point, pure. The fine-grained tannins, showing heft initially, slowly recess into the fruit, resulting in a wine of elegance, grace and sleekness of shape. One for the cellar – if you can keep your hands off it." - 97 Points, Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion
Grange Shiraz 2021 -
$995 special price; $1,150 RRP
"This is indeed an extraordinary Grange. Quite simply, a wow wine. Maroon/black in hue, one simply gets lost in the nose, just endlessly sniffing the most glorious cassis notes, along with black fruits, blueberries, coffee beans, aniseed, mulberries, delicatessen meats, tobacco leaves, plums and graphite. The wine is seamless, intense and immaculate with knife-edge balance. It simply dances with joy. The oak is there, undeniably, but it is so well handled that you almost have to think twice. So complex already, and yet so harmonious and decadent. Silky tannins, bright acidity, the intensity never wavers for an instant and there is incredible length – Rutherglen muscat length. This is as close to a perfect Grange as I can imagine. Fifty years, if you think you can last that long (or want very grateful grandkids). A Lord-take-me-now wine, if ever there was one." - 100 Points, Ken Gargett, Wine Pilot
"This is a spectacular Grange. This will go down as another landmark Grange… I have never tasted a Grange with this individuality and presence." - 20+/20 Points, Matthew Jukes
"Grange has never been my favourite of the Penfolds portfolio (I am a St Henri girl) but I’ve been converted. And if ever a vintage were to turn me, 2021 was always going to be the one, heralded by many in South Australia as a ‘vintage of a lifetime’. The trademark Grange volatile acidity presents itself as macerated balsamic strawberries, tapenade and tarmac, joining mouthfilling silky tannins and sumptuous aromas and flavours of boysenberry, root beer, mocha, salted liquorice and crème caramel. If you can ignore its siren call from the cellar, it easily has three to five decades of life ahead." - 99 Points, Tina Gellie, Decanter
If you wish to buy any of these wines, please use the links above
Alternatively, email us at sales@thewineemporium.com.au, or contact us on (07)32521117 if you have any questions.
// Special prices valid until Thursday the 21st of August (the Bin 707 and Grange prices will stay on indefinitely)