Penfolds Bin 149 Cabernet Sauvignon 2020

Having mastered the multiregional blend, it only seems natural for Penfolds to try its hand at cross-country blends. Here it is: cabernet sauvignon from California’s Napa Valley and our South Australia. Matured in French (80% new) and American (20% new) oak for 16 months. Bright crimson, the wine shows plush, cedar-dotted blackberry, black cherry and mulberry fruit with hints of baking spices, espresso, olive tapenade, crème de cassis, graphite, ferruginous earth, leather, licorice and vanillin oak. Full bodied and pure of fruit with ripe, gravelly tannin giving a sense of fineness to the wine’s structure, finishing long and true. Drinking great already, but this will be an impressive wine with careful cellaring. Drink from: 2023. Drink by: 2043. Score – 95. (Dave Brookes, winecompanion.com.au, July 21, 2023)