2021 Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon, Penfolds, South Australia

The 2021 Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon is from Coonawarra, Wrattonbully, McLaren Vale, Padthaway, Barossa Valley and Adelaide Hills. As I smelled this, I thought, "Gee, this smells good!" Usually, I find the presence of American oak to be distracting and ill-matched to the leafy, detailed Cabernet fruit. Here, there has been a significant proportion of French oak (25% new) and a lesser proportion of American oak (12% new oak). You get dark chocolate, berry compote, resin, stewed rhubarb, cassis, crème de menthe, soft-eating licorice and black olive tapenade. All regions have a warm climate, with the exception of Adelaide Hills, of course. In this cooler year, the fruit is mouth-filling without being heavy. Saturating. Lovely. Creamy. Big! Excellent. Drink 2023 – 2051. 14.5% alc

Very dark purple. Minty, pyrazine nose. Very juicy start – almost soft and certainly sweet – and then a pinched, drying finish with definite vegetal notes. A bit short. Wait. Drink 2025 – 2037. 14.5% alc

This is a harder, more structured and spicier Cabernet than expected, with green hints and some raw edges, to fur the teeth and make you work. It will annoy the velvet underground but please the non-conformists because it shows detail, edge, herb, stem and crunch rarely found in these wines. It will need an age to assimilate the tannins and the skin notes and, like a powerful red Graves, it must find time to line up its friend and its foe molecules for inspection in order for it to pass muster. I love wines with this level of perfume and traction and those fans who manage to secure stock will be handsomely rewarded in due course. Drink 2030 – 2050. 14.5% alc

Inspired by Bin 707, this cuvée, first launched in 1993 with the 1990 vintage, demonstrates Penfolds' multi-regional blending philosophy even further by also including Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from McLaren Vale, Padthaway and Adelaide Hills, but dialling down the oak – here 12 months in French (25% new) and American (12% new) hogsheads. A supremely cool and classy wine this vintage whose perfume seduces from the off. Gorgeous, layered aromas and rich flavours of blackforest gateau, rosemary, pencil lead, boysenberries, violets and exotic tobacco. Lovely cleansing acidity prevents any heaviness, and the oak sits in the background, adding a quiet cedar tone and a superfine tannin This document is for internal use only. structure. Hard to resist now, but it will mature beautifully. The best-value wine of the range – a no-brainer at this price. Drink 2025 – 2055. 14.5% alc

Two thousand and twenty one is a fantastic vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon Bin 407 that brings together fruit from Coonawarra, Wrattonbully, McLaren Vale, Padthaway, Barossa Valley and Adelaide Hills. The wine shows a lovely presence, with every piece in its place. It opens with expressive cassis, chocolate mint and graphite with well-proportioned oak. A composed and well-structured palate follows, with genuine tension intertwined with tremendous brights of fruit before a cedary, youthful and surprisingly long finish. There's killer balance from start to finish.