2021 Best’s, Bin No.0 Shiraz, Great Western, Victoria, Australia

It is a shame that this wine is not currently available in the UK, but it was so delicious (and this note will last a long time) that I wanted to post my thoughts because this is a remarkable vintage for this incredible winery. 

It’s amazing how some wines appear to hand over their credentials, like a formal document changing hands, before a drop is poured.  The anticipation during this imagined transaction weighs briefly but heavily on one’s mind and in one’s taste memory.  Bin No.0 is a wine with a mighty legend, and I cannot remember ever drinking a bottle that dipped below ‘spectacular’!  But there is something a little different about this heavenly 2021 vintage that requires this wine’s silent contract to be revised.  While most of the older wines under this banner summon up the vineyards’ elemental power and venerable soils, which bring an all-consuming rawness and power, coupled with layers of exoticism and chypre, this 2021 has a little more going on.  There is extraordinary polish and civility here that, coupled with the reasonable 13.5% alcohol, conspire to deliver one of the most sonorous and hypnotic Bin No.0s in memory.  Just short of its fourth birthday, it has the demeanour and calm of a ten-year-old wine, yet it still possesses primary fruit notes and pristine freshness.  You can drink it now.  Yes, this might appear to be a ludicrous statement, but this 2021 was born with perfect balance, and this balance will remain for its long and splendid life.  This wine writer is used to expecting the unexpected, but I never thought there was another twist in the plot for this historic creation.  19/20 Drink now – 2040