Good to the last drop
Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz 2013
Coonawarra, South Australia
$29.95-$37
★★★★½/96
Starting October last year, Penfolds began releasing its much-loved "bin" wines alongside its blue-chips, such as Grange shiraz and Bin 707 cabernet sauvignon. Previously they'd split the release over March and October. However, in February they snuck out a mini-release of the 2013 vintages of Bin 128 and Bin 138 (reviewed below). Under winemaker Peter Gago, we've seen a finessing of the Penfolds style in regard to brighter fruit and increasingly sympathetic oak. The new Bin 128 reflects this, albeit in the rich, fleshy style of the warm 2013 vintage. It's a distinctly Penfolds expression of cool-climate shiraz – richly layered and fairly tannic but elegantly structured, with a long life ahead of it.
Penfolds Bin 138 Shiraz Grenache Mataro 2013
Barossa Valley, South Australia
$29.95-$37
★★★★/94
It seems hard to believe now but until the release of the first Bin 138, from the 1992 vintage, the words "Barossa Valley" seldom appeared on a Penfolds red-wine label. In that year Penfolds picked up on the shiraz–grenache–mataro blend being popularised by a band of small Barossa vignerons, dubbed the "Rhone rangers". Penfolds varies the ratios in the blend according to the vintage. In the warm 2013 vintage, shiraz leads the way, giving great weight and richness to the wine. However, the high-toned aroma and fruitiness of grenache shows through, while mataro gives its spice and quite firm tannins. This is a big, luscious 138 with considerable ageing potential.
St John's Road Peace of Eden Riesling 2014
Sanders vineyard, Eden Valley, South Australia
$19-$22
★★★★/94
Barossa winemaker Phil Lehmann generally makes rieslings with generous mid-palate fruit flavours. In the warm 2014 vintage, nature lent Lehmann a hand, providing flavour-packed fruit – to a degree that surprised a few of us at a recent tasting. Young rieslings can be on the austere side. But Peace of Eden provided a big, fruity aroma and a generous, clearly varietal, palate to match. Despite its rich, upfront fruit flavour, the wine sat light and fresh on the palate, with a delicate structure and zippy, dry finish.
Dominique Portet Origine Chardonnay 2013
Upper Yarra Valley, Victoria
$40
★★★★/92
For a couple of decades, French-born Dominique Portet made the wines of Taltarni, Victoria, and Clover Hill, Tasmania. With winemaking son Ben he now runs his own show in the Yarra Valley, making elegant, understated wines reflective of the cool growing conditions. He describes Origine 2013 as a "restrained expression of this classic variety, crafted to evolve gracefully". At two years, it's on that trajectory: pale coloured, subtly perfumed and with a gentle, deeply flavoured palate that seamlessly combines fruit and oak-fermentation characters.
Wolf Blass Yellow Label Chardonnay 2014
Padthaway and Adelaide Hills, South Australia
$9.40-$16
★★★½/90
Wolf Blass made his first Yellow Label wines in 1966 and over time built one of Australia's enduring wine brands, loved for their fruitiness and soft, easy drinkability. Blass sold the business decades ago, but the brand lives on under the ownership of Treasury Wine Estates. A recent note from winemaker Chris Hatcher says the wines now all bear regional labels. The delicious 2014 chardonnay, for example, combines from from Padthaway (a two-hour drive north of Mount Gambier) and Adelaide Hills, on the Mount Lofty Ranges, abutting Adelaide's eastern suburbs. It's an amazingly good, bright, loveable chardonnay, often discounted to about $10 a bottle.
Kangarilla Road Terzetto 2013
McLaren Vale, South Australia
$30
★★★★/92
Terzetto, meaning threesome, combines three varieties – sangiovese, primitivo and nebbiolo – all vastly different beasts. Sangiovese and nebbiolo originate in Italy. But primitivo, originally from Croatia (its oldest name there is tribidrag), thrives in southern Italy and in California as zinfandel. Primitivo gives the wine its bold fruit flavour, augmented, says winemaker Kevin O'Brien, by sangiovese. Nebbiolo, the noble grape of Piedmont, gives the wine its firm backbone and savoury complexity. Exotic flavours, medium body and savoury, firm tannins set Terzetto apart. It drinks really well with roasted red meats and savoury food.