It was a wine made in secret, and it's whereabouts is now a mystery, but one thing is for certain - if Barry O'Farrell's lost bottle of 1959 Penfold's Grange ever turns up, it could be worth a lot more than $3000.
There are seven bottles of the 1959 Grange up for sale in Australia at present, and the cheapest on offer is listed at $2998, from Sydney-based wine broker Cellarit.com.au, for a bottle with a heavily stained and torn label.
That's only $20 more than the $2978 originally paid by Nick Di Girolamo for O'Farrell's gift.
National chain Dan Murphy also has a bottle of 1959 Grange advertised at $4850.
According to the Dan Murphy website, "the 1959 Grange is a dark cherry dominated blend of 90% Shiraz and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. Still showing notes of bitter chocolate and marmalade, this great Grange will be drinking well for the next few years comfortably".
But the top price on offer is on eBay at $7490, for a mint bottle that also passed Penfolds Red Wine Clinic in 2010.
For the past 23 years, Penfolds has held clinics around the world for its better "Bin" wines to be tested and recorked.
Each bottle is tasted by one of Penfolds' winemakers, topped up and, if of a high enough standard, certified by the winemaker.
O'Farrell has until August to track down that missing bottle of Grange, that's when the next Penfolds Clinic will be held in Sydney, the company's first clinic in Australia since 2012.
Should O'Farrell's missing bottle turn up and pass muster – both in terms of content and label – then its value could more than double, especially given its newfoiund signficance in Australian political history.
Penfolds has tested more than 120,000 bottles of its own wine over the past two decades. While wine collectors initially snubbed the clinics – claiming it disturbed the original bottle – wines that have passed are now commanding a premium on secondary markets.
The 1959 Grange was made by legendary Penfolds' wine maker Max Schubert in secret after the company ordered him to cease production in 1957.
The last the of the "hidden" Granges, it was matured in used American oak barrels for 18 months, as Schubert could not get his hands on new ones without alerting the beancounters.
Indeed, at last year's Penfolds' clinic in London, the star find was a 1959 bottle of Grange that was tasted by winemaker Steve Lienert. It was perfect, and was certified on the day.
