2018 Penfolds RWT Bin 798 Shiraz

Recently we opened a bottle of 2018 Penfolds RWT Bin 798 Shiraz. Many moons ago when I was starting medical school I decided I was going to get into wine and I started by trying and disliking a lot of Australian Shiraz. Back then, Australia's wine industry hadn't really fully matured and while you had legacy producers like Penfolds who were making exceptional wines all the inexpensive stuff I was drinking was coming from producers who cared more about quantity than quality and a lot of the wine was hot from aggressively high alcohol levels and over-ripening. After several months and many bottles i decided I disliked Shiraz (Syrah) and didn't drink it again until a few years ago.

In the last few years I've been focusing on Syrah primarily from the Northern Rhone and from K Vintners in Washington State and they really have opened my eyes to how diverse and complex Syrah can be and I love a good Syrah now. However, more so than about any other varietal to me, Syrah has such a wide diversity of styles that you never really know what you're going to get when you try a new bottle.

This was my first experience with Australian Shiraz since around 2004, and as Syrah often does, it surprised me.

On the nose it had a black fruit liqueur, graphite, and fruitcake aroma that was nice but did hint at a higher alcohol wine. On the palate it had intense graphite, black fruit, toasty spice from the new French oak, and a finish that was a bit lifted and long but less powerful and dense than the mid-palate which was nice. The tannins were present but ultrafine and provided a nice structure to this massive wine. It was exceptionally smooth with no bite anywhere. Overall, it was a very well crafted wine but just wasn't very complex or interesting even if it was really enjoyable.

Don't get me wrong, this is a wine that would impress most anyone if served blind in an informal, non-wine tasting setting. But, knowing what can be done with Syrah and the price point of this bottle, I just felt like it tasted too much like an over-ripe Napa Cab from mid-2000s. So much so that I am confident had I been blinded I would've guessed this was a Cabernet Sauvignon.