I had forgotten about this bottle, slowly gathering dust in the liquor cabinet at my parents’ house. I had bought this way back in my liquor store sales clerk days, so I’m not joking when I say this is a relic!

Petit Verdot is a grape perhaps best known as a Bordeaux blending grape. This small-berried, thick skinned variety is often used in Bordeaux in small amounts to incorporate spice, texture, colour and tannin to the final blend.

A hardy, late ripening grape, it grows well in Australia’s climate, and is often made into single varietal wines there.

This wine hails from the catch-all territory called South Eastern Australia (like the infamous Yellow Tail), so while it’s not expressive of any one particular area, it was most definitely a fair example of the grape, and certainly still had plenty of vigour left after such a long period of storage.

Doesn't the silhouette inside the bottle look like a moth? Don't worry, the wine's not THAT old... That's just sediment, my friends!

Opened on September 25th, 2010. Opaque ruby black in the glass with garnet edges and a developing nose of earth, leather, mushrooms, smoke and ham with spicy black fruit aromas underneath. Dry, with still fairly decent (medium) acidity, medium smooth tannins, full-ish body and medium in alcohol, with somewhat pronounced sweet black fruits, prunes, licorice, chocolate, mocha, leather, earth, baking spice and cigar tobacco on the palate, carrying on through the medium-plus finish. I found the texture interestingly opaque like its colour; milky almost. Overall I thought this was a pleasant surprise that was drinking quite well, and proof that even a value wine can show cellaring potential. $15 (the price a few years ago; now $17)