Nose of blackberries, smoke, dusty earth, and a touch of vanilla.
Rich but balanced on the palate. Sweet dark black fruits. Blackberries and black cherry. Very pure fruit expression. Very long with good fruit acid. Has a ferrous quality. Finished with dark chocolate. Good true and pure expression of Barossa Shiraz. Rich but not overdone. (92 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
This used to be one of my go-to Aussie wines in the early 2000s, then the pricing went nuts. Not sure what a good price is these days, but I’ve seen some around for $140. RWT stands for something, but I can’t remember.
Red Wine Trial?
Yeah I think the price is still up there (Penfolds has established huge cachet in China) but bargains can be hand on the secondary market. Looks like I picked this up for $46 all in at auction.
RWT stands for Red Wine Making Trials. I’m a little rusty on it, but Penfolds house style is known to involve multi regional blending and liberal use of American Oak. I believe the RWT program was about establishing a different style, region specific, ampler lots, French oak…
I had a 2006 mag of RWT at Christmas last year and it was possibly my wine of the year (at least top 5). It was $160 (all-in) at auction.
IIRC, the RWT was/is 100% Barossa Shiraz but aged in french oak. Penfolds made a batch/batches of this wine in 1996 but did not release it (assume that they blended the wine into other bottlings) but went on to produce the first commercial release from the 1997 vintage. It is now labelled RWT Bin 798. The price of this (like most Penfolds wines) left me behind long ago.
I totally agree with you Mark. I was a great fan of Penfolds in the 90’s and dropped out in 2000.
I bought a case of 2011 RWT to flip, as it was a fantastic price (at $45 per), but with my love of Syrah, and knowing how much I loved the Grange tasting of a few years ago (Berserker tasting, of course!), I wonder if I should keep them and enjoy them. Digging up notes like these to see if it’s a style I would be interested in…
I very much like how RWT and Magill age, but even still, the pricing makes them generally a pas these days. Too bad.
This used to be one of my go-to Aussie wines in the early 2000s, then the pricing went nuts. Not sure what a good price is these days, but I’ve seen some around for $140. RWT stands for something, but I can’t remember.
I could not believe what they are getting for the 389 these days. A friend was excited he got it on sale for $70. I remember this wine being maybe around $30 in the 2000s.