2008 Tasting Notes

Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon has established itself as one of Australia's favourite premium red wines. Since its first vintage in 1976, Koonunga Hill's reputation has been built upon its affordable price, its approachability in its youth, with the potential to develop if carefully cellared.

Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet is very much a reflection of the Penfolds winemaking style and philosophy. Sourced from premium vineyards across South Australia, the wine is known for its full-flavoured style with excellent Shiraz and Cabernet fruit, firm yet well-rounded structure and balanced oak.

Made as a traditional 'Australian blend', the Shiraz component provides fleshy fruit flavour while Cabernet provides a frame of fine grained tannins.


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Koonunga Hill, first produced in 1976, is named after Penfolds renowned Koonunga Hill vineyard in the Barossa Valley. Celebrating over 30 years of vintages, it has established a reputation far exceeding its expectations as a commercial entry-point wine.

Koonunga Hill is a multi-district shiraz cabernet, based largely on Barossa, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra fruit. It is a classic Penfolds maturation-style wine where fruit complexity and vivacity, rather than oak, are brought to the fore.

The original Koonunga Hill blend is still just as popular today. The wine shows all the rich voluptuousness and alluring spice of great Australian shiraz and adds a welcome element of structure and spine, thanks to some premium cabernet sauvignon fruit.

Although remaining true to its origins of style, there has been a steady progression of refinement. Increased fragrancy and richness of fruit, buoyancy and weight gives this wine immediate current appeal and outstanding cellar-ability over the medium term.

  • Gnocchi with a traditional beef ragu
  • Eggplant parmigiana
  • Moroccan lamb pie

Mighty Penfolds Still the Monarch Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2008

Phillip White, 13 May 2010, The Independent Weekly

I simply cannot imagine why you’d risk fewer dollars on cleanskins of dubious provenance when you can buy this for the price of two schooners of beer. It’s an audacious, cheeky, sassy wine: a brash brat from the Bash Street Kids. The fruit cannot be contained. The stylish oak tries to wrap up that fruit, but it leaps off again and there you go after it, glass after glass. I thought at first the wine had been made like a Beaujolais, with carbonic maceration, but no, Peter Gago assures me, it’s straight down the line conventional winemaking in the Penfolds style.

Points: 80+
Vintage: 2008
Alcohol: 13.5%
Price: $9
Closure: screw cap

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  • Wine Name & Year
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  • Award & Class
  • Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet 2006
    International Wine Challenge 2008
    COMMENDED
  • Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet 2007
    Decanter World Wine Awards 2009
    COMMENDED
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