Great depth of crimson. Lustre, brilliance. Blueberry RWT markers thrust ahead of goji berry and loganberry fruits. An aromatic swirl of choc/hazelnut/liquorice propels all that is RWT style and class. Thereon, lifted scents of just glazed crème brûlée and wafts of icing sugar. Barrel-ferment and ferric overtones gently bring all back down to ground level – Barossa iron/earths no less.

Viscous and lush. An immediate supple fleshiness, liveliness. At release, during this primary fruit stage – berried ice-cream and black forest cake fruits unfold – redcurrant and blackberry. Powdery tannins – silky and glossy – offer textbook velvet/cashmere texture. So smooth! Dense, verging on unctuous, without any reliance or concession to alcohol or oak.

Wonderful length, depth, balance.

99 Point Rated - Andrew Caillard MW

"Deep crimson. Ethereal pure blackberry pastille roasted chestnut mocha aromas with hint ginger notes. Voluminous and animated wine with dense saturated blackberry dark chocolate fruits, plentiful fine velvety tannins and superb integrated roasted chestnut, mocha vanilla oak complexity. Finishes chocolaty firm. Elemental, powerful and seductive with years ahead of it. Should develop into a classic. Seal; Cork Drink 2025-2045 14.5% alc 99 points. Arguably the most aromatic, complex, generous and balanced Bin 798 RWT vintage of all time. A great Barossa Shiraz with brilliant cellaring potential. 16 months in 64% new and 36% one-year-old French oak hogsheads."

98 Point Rated - Joe Czerwinski Robert Parker Wine Advocate

"Sourced only from the Barossa Valley, RWT is aged exclusively in French oak, giving it two major points of difference from the rest of the Penfolds range. Always a sexy, voluptuous wine (and admittedly a personal favorite), the 2018 RWT Shiraz ratchets that up to new heights in a great Barossa vintage, boasting layers of berry-like fruit, refined vanilla shadings and baking-spice notes, plus more exotic elements like star anise and cocoa powder. It's full-bodied and plush without being unstructured in any way, with a lingering, complex finish and the concentration to age two decades or more."

98 Point Rated - Huon Hooke The Real Review

"Very deep, glass-staining purple/red colour. The bouquet is also very intense and concentrated, essency and profound, loaded with toasty-charry oak and mocha, espresso coffee, dark chocolate aromas, the palate formidably powerful, concentrated and intense. The flavour tracks the bouquet precisely and the tannins and extract give the palate a massive density and breathtakingly mouth-coating texture, the whole entity combining in a mighty crescendo that roars through the finish to a very long aftertaste. The density of the wine is rare indeed: you almost feel you could stand a spoon up in it."

98 Point Rated - Ralph Kyte-Powell The Real Review

"It has impenetrable purplish colour and a seductive nose of crushed black fruits, jam, spice, mocha and toasted cedar. Everything is seamlessly woven together into a palate of extraordinary depth and richness, velvety flow, solid backbone and super-long finish. A magnificent wine that should develop superbly over many years."

98 Point Rated - Ray Jordan

98 Point Rated - Ken Gargett

97 Point Rated - James Halliday Wine Companion

"This full-bodied shiraz spent 16 months in French hogsheads (64% new, 36% 1yo). The red winemaking team at Penfolds has the game by the throat here. It's flashy, it's opulent, its depth of black fruits and surrounds of oak and tannins sweep away any resistance. But beware of the pea and thimble trick - it needs at least 10 years to let you come up for air."

96 Point Rated - James Suckling

"This has a very attractively fresh, showy feel to the nose with aromas of ripe red cherries, blackberries, goji berries and redcurrants, as well as red plums and some wild-herb and licorice notes on offer, too. Very expressive and fragrant. The palate has a super intense and powerful delivery of ripe red-cherry and plum flavors and immaculately fresh French oak (64% new) that really clasps and holds the finish long. The tannins are so ripe and well positioned. Drink over two decades. 96 points."

95 Point Rated - Tyson Stelzer

"The warm summer of 2018 plays to Penfolds mandate for RWT to be ‘opulent, fleshy, aromatic and plush’ (by contrast to the Grange aspiration of ‘muscular and assertive’), making this a very easy wine to blend for the Penfolds team. ‘Such was the calibre of our A2 grade shiraz – the core of RWT and St Henri – that we almost nailed the blend right from the outset during classification!’ Peter Gago revealed. And opulent it is, a deep well of magnificent, sweet, ripe black fruits of enticingly glossy appeal, painted in rich strokes of French oak dark and milk chocolate, underlined by polished, firm fine tannins that draw the finish out long, full and strong. A quintessential RWT for the medium-term, guaranteed to turn heads and win hearts. 14.5% alc. 2028-2033 – 95 points."

RWT Barossa Valley 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 lush texture. The result is a wine that helps to redefine Barossa shiraz at the highest quality level.

Rainfall In autumn was below average, a trend that continued into the early weeks of winter with only 25% of the long-term average achieved in June. Increased rainfall occurred in the second half of winter, with vines entering the growing season with moisture profiles well into the root zone, down to one metre. Conditions favoured canopy development in spring, initially dry before plentiful rainfall in November. Temperatures warmed substantially through spring boosting vine growth and rushing the vines through flowering. Summer was dry, with no recorded major rain events. This carried into January with a heat spike around veraison causing vines to stall, pushing the start of vintage out by a week or so. The warm, dry weather carried into autumn, setting up an Indian summer with favourable conditions for ripening grapes. A very strong vintage for Barossa Valley shiraz.