Caporale 1986 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

An odd orphan I found downstairs this week. I'd have guessed there were no more bottles I didn't know about down there.

I admit during the years in the basement this bottle lost its price label, so I'm only guessing it was under $20. I suspect it doesn't matter, really: I see no evidence in Google that Caporale wine is currently available outside the winery.

Because the wine has developed a significant amount of sediment and because the cork crumbled some while being extracted, I put this through a paper coffee filter.

Clear dark ruby with the sediment filtered out.

Unpleasant over-ripe fruit salad smell which doesn't seem to blow off after half an hour. Under the stink there are smells of currant, black cherry, plum.

Ripe stone fruit flavor, the fruit-salad-gone-bad is here, too.

The next day the smell and taste haven't improved. This isn't quite like anything I've encountered before in wine. I hesitated before posting it, but I think this has been like this since the day it was bottled, and is not some product of spoilage. My experience with too-old wine is that it just loses flavor, not that it develops weird bad ones.

If I found another bottle I'd open it, to see if it is this distasteful.