2004 Main Divide Selection Pinot Noir

[Skeeter]

So I'm re-stocking the shelves in the wine store I work at, right? And lo and behold, what's this? A bottle of Waipara pinot with a badly creased label! A bottle of pinot that we won't be able to get again due to the vintage selling out. Well, we can't sell our customers a bottle with a defective label, right?

And so the bankcard came out, and this one came home with me a few months back.

Fast-forward to tonight. Grilled lamb steaks with a mustard and rosemary crust should be a nice match. I attempt to crack the screw-cap...

And the whole capsule popped off instead. I'm gutted, thinking I'm the lucky owner of a bottle of Waipara vinegar.

The good news? Once I remove the inner lining of the cap, which was still attached to the bottle, there's the distinct "POP" of a seal breaking.

The wine made it through unscathed and un-oxidized. Score another one for Stelvins. [img]http://wines.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

The wine itself? Very nice indeed. Deep crimson in the glass with a rich, warm, complex nose. Aromas of dark berries and black cherries with a faint hint of aniseed/pastis characters in the background. Dense and spicy, the fruit having melded well to produce a very savory mouthful with some drying tannins still on the finish. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the rest of it overnight.