Penfolds RWT Shiraz 2016

Penfolds RWT Shiraz presents an admirable alternative to the multi-regional sourcing and American oak maturation that are hallmarks of Grange, expressing instead, single-region Barossa Valley Shiraz matured only in French oak. The initials RWT stand for ‘Red Winemaking Trial’, the name given to the project internally when developmental work began in 1995. Naturally, now no longer a ‘Trial’ RWT Shiraz was launched in May 2000 with the 1997 vintage. Its style is opulent and fleshy, contrasting with Grange, which is more muscular and assertive. RWT is made from fruit primarily selected for its aromatic qualities and fine texture rather than sheer intensity or power of flavour. The result is a wine that helps to redefine Barossa Shiraz at the highest quality level.

"Deep, dense, almost inky purple/red colour, with a glorious bouquet of mocha, grilled nuts of various kinds, great concentration and density, which saturates the palate and lasts for minutes on the aftertaste. Smoky, toasty, nutty, graphite and roast meat aromas; charcoal and bitumen, but not fruit! The fruit is there in spadefuls but it is submerged behind a curtain of complexity. An enormously impressive wine, the texture almost improbably supple and smooth in spite of the welter of tannin. Outstanding wine. (Bin 798 has been added to the label this year)."
98 points, Huon Hooke, October 2018.

"Medium-deep colour. Intense mulberry chinotto Turkish Delight aromas with roasted chestnut vanillin notes. Well concentrated, rich and voluminous with deep set blackberry, mulberry dark chocolate flavours, fine plentiful slinky grainy tannins and mocha roasted chestnut oak. Finishes tannin and oaky firm with prolonged classic dark berry praline flavours. Still elemental with lovely density and texture. The Penfolds DNA showing through the Barossa aesthetic. Give it 7 years. 98 points – 14.5% Alcohol – Drink 2025-2045."
98 points, Andrew Caillard MW, October 2018.

"Lovely crimson-purple hue. Intriguing; while the wine is only just into medium to full-bodied territory, the tannins have been sculpted into fine lines to provide the framework for a high quality wine. It thus flies somewhere in the left field, but does so with charm and grace, the length glorious."

97 points, James Halliday (August 2018)