THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
1951 MILDARA YELLOW LABEL BIN 21 CABERNET SHIRAZ Reynella, South Australia
This was claimed to be the first varietally labelled cabernet shiraz in Australia, but actually, it was 100% Reynella shiraz. The wine was described by wine writer James Halliday in 1985 as a ‘freakish aged wine in which the structure has not broken at all’. Almost 20 years earlier, in The Bulletin magazine’s August 1966 Cellarmaster column, Len Evans recalls it as: ‘Absolutely wonderful wine, with one of the best bouquets I have had the pleasure of experiencing’. Bin 21 was the beginning of the Yellow Label series, which became a stalwart of Australia’s fine wine revival. Ron Haselgrove said, ‘My great love of dry red wine had always made me anxious to try my hand at making the best possible dry red in Australia, and I was first attracted to the Hunter River but, in 1952, decided that the district offering most scope was Coonawarra, where Bill Redman had kept the flag flying in the teeth of adversity’. The follow-up 1953 vintage was a Southern Vales Coonawarra blend, the latter vinified by Bill Redman. Then, in 1954, Mildara acquired prime terra rossa vineyard land in Coonawarra. The series generally became Southern Vales Coonawarra blends, with occasional appearances of Langhorne Creek malbec or Hunter shiraz. Mildara certainly championed the multi-district, multi-varietal blend. Ron Haselgrove’s son Richard recalled being on the bottling line at Reynella when the 3,000 dozen bottles of 1951 Bin 21 were packaged up. ‘Everything done by hand’, he said. While this wine marked the rise in prominence of Mildara as a fine wine producer, it also spelled the beginning of the end of the Reynella brand. The bones of the Reynella business were sold to Hungerford Hill in 1970. In 1991, Mildara merged with Wolf Blass to become Mildara Blass, and the Mildara brand eventually went the same way.
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