The Auswine Forum

OK youz guyz, need a little help here. I have a "bottle" of Hunter Estate Wines non-vintage Old Tawny Port. It's in a 750ml pottery jug. I've had it for maybe 15-20 years, bought on one of my first visits to OZ. It's been upright the entire time, and the cork looks like it might be a little dry. Any thoughts on this? Open it and drink, or be satisfied to just look at the jug with the broken handle and think of what could have been a decent drop at one time?

These things are always worth opening and trying and if it's yuk, which I kinda expect it might be, you've still got the jug anyway.

Hunter Estate back then was part of Wyndham Estate under the control of Brian McGuigan (He lost control in early 1990, a major shareholder lost a lot of money with the collapse of a rent-a-car business, When Orlando bought it out). Hunter Estate was the volume winery for the group (the Wyndham Est 'winery' only had the bottling line and 'champagne' cellar).

Many of the wines under Wyndham Est, Richmond Grove and Hunter Est labels were the same.

I wouldn't get excited about your find - Old probably means 5 years old, I remember a tank of port and I've just remembered a 10 barrel stack which I think was port. Pottery jugs were fairly popular at various stages but rarely very interesting.

Disclosure: I worked at Hunter Estate during and in the lead up to the 1989 and 1990 vintages.

Cheers

DJ, thanks for the scribble. Now things start to make sense again. What drew me to Wyndham Estate way back then was the McGuigan name, same as mine (no relation). I thought it might be fun to have a wine with my family name on it, so on a visit to the Hunter, I must have gone to the winery, got various bottles, and took the pottery home. Brian has come a long way since that time, referring to the size of the company and not the quality of the wine, for sure. Sounds like I should open the crock, have a nip, and decide if it goes into the Christmas cooking....