What happens when you forget a supermarket wine for 20 years.

So I found this in the basement of my best mates parents. They bought a house and discovered that the previous owners left their wine and wanted to know if there was anything still usable. Turns out there was. Just something unexpected as it was amongst a collection of unremarkable table wines that were most likely picked up at the local supermarket.

Currently a bottle of this will cost you about 5€ to 10€ here in Germany. So this would be one of the nicer wines you’d get at something like Aldi but that’s about the ceiling. Hell you can get a 3l box of this so ageworthiness really wasn’t something anyone ever thought of with this one. But hey I’m curious and was with people who aren’t really into wine which means they wouldn’t miss any bottles I took. This was the nicest one of the bunch along some sweet wines so it’s not like I robbed them of anything of value.

So with nothing to lose and at worst an interesting experience to gain I opened this supermarket wine with a vintage that’s just two years younger than me, expecting vinegar and was welcomed by… cherry. Tart red cherry. And some hints of forest floor. At that moment I felt like I’d just found a vinified vampire. It wasn’t supposed to even be close to drinkable and it smelled so youthful and alive. I was questing my sanity but after pouring some I saw pale garnet. Not brown. And the taste confirmed it. The tart cherry was still there. Along with a hint of truffle. And were those… tannins? Yes there were still tannins left. Very soft but still there. Accompanied by a good mouthfeel and medium acidity. This little Grenache forward (According to their now 13 year old website 60% Grenache, 30% Syrah and the rest other Rhone varieties) GSM blend wasn’t just alive and barely hanging on. It probably was as good as it ever was and gonna be.

These people probably have the absolute perfect storage conditions for wine in their cellar without even trying. And the sad part? As I said they’re really not into wine. Hell what I was supposed to look for were wines you could still cook with as that was all they’d ever be used for in this house. So it’ll be unrealised potential and all that’ll ever come of it is this little vampire, this Count Dracula of a wine.