On rare occasions Penfolds create a 'one-off' Special Bin wines in very small batches (1000 dozen or less). These wines are made only in the very best years and comes from unique parcels of quality fruit, separate from the main blends and released as individual ultra-premium wines. The 1990 Penfolds Bin 920 Cabernet Shiraz is one such wine.

The colour is almost impenetrable, so deep is it. There is amazingly lush, opulent plummy fruit on the bouquet; the palate has layer upon layer of dark plum, cassis and cherry fruit with equally layered soft and supple tannins running throughout. Will be ready long before Bin 90A, though nonetheless has a 20-year future. Rating: 95 Points; Date Tasted: Jun 1994; Drink by 2020; James Halliday Wine Companion

Massive strike of Coonawarra mint/eucalypt. It serves to both simplify the wine and polarise opinion. It is a great pity, because the wine has so much going for it: fresh, mulberried, leathery flavour, nuances of cigar box and dried herbs, galore-ious tannin that’s attached to the fruit – and indeed woven through it. Bright as a button. I’m keen to mark it down for all that eucalypt, and yet I love the wine. It is undeniable: Penfolds Bin 920 Cabernet Shiraz is a stellar wine. Rating: 95 Points; Drink: 2010-2025+; Date Tasted: Sept 2013; Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front