Community Tasting Note
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Bin707LoversDetroit Likes this wine: 91 points
June 1, 2018 - Well CT readers of our reviews (the few of you that can handle our short books on each bottle) here it is, our Bin 389 review. After mentioning this King of Juice in numerous other Notes & Reviews, we finally get around to setting this one out on its own...
Drank after a two hour aeration, which allows one to take in its gorgeous whiff from half a room away, this big buttery red offers structure, richness, depth, complexity to describe it differently from the first sip to the last. Dry & still tight, it has girth, body; rack-able for another 10+ years. Muscular in its density, there's a lot to chew on here. Yet it is immediately approachable. A touch of dark chocolate on the finish. Big and delicious! You’ll be pleased with Bin 389 as a vin, BUT… pick up a better vintage! - maybe it was just this bottle.?.
We have been enjoying Bin 389 for decades, and each bottle, in general, became more legendary, more representative of what we LOVE in Aussie blends. Bigger. More story-worthy.
Until this one.
Maybe this is the only 2010 we have ever had. Maybe we do not know how this bottle was stored for 4 years before we brought it home.
Maybe 2010 was just not Penfolds’ best 389 year.?. We have not done the research.
Our score reflects what we think of this bottle after drinking it, not of this vin, enjoyed since 2001. It only reflects what we thought of this OK bottle.
But Bin 389 is such a pertineer perfect wine, that an OK Bin 389 scores 91, where the 389 WE remember is more of a 93-or-so pointer…
So glad we have a dozen of these in various vintages in the cellar. And honestly, we are glad they are NOT 2010s.
In general, not this bottle, but in general, this is our GO TO wine for a standard-bearing delicious big bold buttery red.3 people found this helpful 7,352 views
5 Comments
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BBPP commented:
6/2/18, 12:18 AM - Dud bottle. 2010 is widely regarded as the one of the greatest Bin 389 vintages of all time.
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Bin707LoversDetroit commented:
6/2/18, 9:38 AM - So, BBPP, maybe this bottle was off (for a 389)... The fact that we were not as enamored with this particular bottle as we have been with dozens of other 389s, yet we still recognize the quality with which it is made, and the complexity it offers the drinker, we still did give it 91 pts... And 91 is right in line with the score this vintage has received here at CT. We in general think of 389 as a 93 pointer or so... That John Duval we recently had was more rewarding than this 389 we drank last night, but the Plexus is not as good as our memories of our 389 experiences in total...
We have to buy bottles from the initial store, not years later unsure of how they were handled for extended times... -
BBPP commented:
6/2/18, 1:54 PM - CT average scores are unreliable to the point of being useless, I think, as there is no standardised scoring system. I only take notice of the descriptions in the note, not the number. If I was a point scorer, and I’m not, this wine would be 95+ every day of the week.
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alohashirt commented:
8/17/19, 12:14 PM - I have had incredible bottles of 2010 Bin 389 and mediocre bottles - and I think theres something strange afoot here. I'm biased - as an expat Aussie Bin 389 was the first red wine I drank regularly when I lived in London in the early 1990s and it was much, much cheaper. From memory it was well under 10 pounds a bottle and it was consistently excellent.
It's 25 years later, I live in New York and when I buy Bin 389 I am disappointed at least half of the time. It tastes short, lacking fruit. On my biennial trips to Australia I but it and it is always great (and always with a screw cap). Why just this Australian wine? My Mollydooker and Henschke reds are consistently great.
I've read that Penfold's wines are the most popular with counterfeiters in China. Could there be fake Penfold's wine on sale in New York? I emailed Penfolds two years ago and got no reply. I would have imagined that the bulk of the fake wine in NYC would be Rudy Kurniawan's burgundies. There are only two EBay listings for Bin 389 - both well above market price. Perhaps I'm seeing a pattern that doesn't exist? -
Bin707LoversDetroit commented:
9/27/19, 6:59 AM - AlohaShirt, thanks for your comments and insights. We too, have experienced "mediocre" Bin 389 bottles. So strange when some have been downright moving. So perhaps the fake or counterfeit wine comment is legit. Years back, like you say, in the late 90s and early 2000s, we never experienced a bad bottle. Only cork tops, have we seen here in Detroit. But we have seen photos of the screw bottles you mention. Anyway, it's one reason we've bought more John Duval and Mollydooker, we've cracked no poor standouts in these bottlings.
So keep on keep'n on, and if we come across any articles about fake 389, we'll post the link here.
Noroc!