A bottle of 1951 Penfolds Grange wine is worth about $60,000 and it is completely undrinkable.

Grange is one of the most famous wines made by Penfolds Wines, based in South Australia. While the 1951 Grange is now just a curio item because it was the first vintage produced, other years such as 1955 are highly drinkable and highly prized as are many other Penfolds wines.

The Royal Gazette recently learned more about Penfolds from Matt Lane, the Penfolds director of wine education who was in Bermuda to promote the winery.

While here, he attended several trade events and also presided over special Australian-themed Penfolds winemakers' dinners held at the Reefs, where ostrich and alligator were on the menu. They say that a wine goes best with food from its own region, but trying to pair a wine with alligator was a stumper, even for an expert like Mr. Lane.

"At the end of the day drink whatever wine you want to drink with alligator," said Mr. Lane with a laugh. "To be honest, it is a bit of a rarity to see alligator on the menu in Australia.

"You wouldn't go to your local bistro and order it. Australia doesn't have a traditional cuisine, but it does have what might be called a fusion cuisine as there is heavy influence from the southeast Asian countries."

He said that if there was any traditional Australian dish it would be barbeque. According to Mr. Lane, Australians outstrip Texans for supremacy in the world of the barbeque.

"With barbeque my favourite wine would be Penfolds St. Henri," said Mr. Lane.

"To me that is the ultimate barbeque wine for a multitude of reasons.

"It is a wine unadorned by oak. It is the classic old school Australian red wine. It goes beautifully with a whole array of barbeque meats."

Mr. Lane started as a sommelier at Penfolds, and has been with the company for 10 years.

"I tried to pursue a career as a professional golfer," said Mr. Lane. "Unfortunately, it got to a good point, but no further."

He joked: "By pure happenstance, the drinking age in Australia is about six. (It's 18).

"I was 21 and I was at a restaurant in Adelaide. There was a Penfolds winemaker dinner there that night. At the end of the evening I went over to talk to the winemaker. There was a special bottle of wine. It was a special bin wine.

"I tried the wine and had an epiphany. I thought it was probably one of the greatest drinks I'd ever had. Right then and there I thought I wanted to turn and face the wine industry and be a part of it."

Penfolds, arguably one of Australia's most famous wineries, is 165 years old. It is located in Adelaide, South Australia. The warm-to-hot climate there is comparable to the Nappa Valley in California or the Rhone Valley in France. "Penfolds is intrinsically linked to the fabric of Australia's early history," said Mr. Lane. "There is no doubt that it is truly one of the great wineries of the world."

Penfolds uses multiple grape varieties, but is perhaps best known for an adaptation of Shiraz. One of the things that makes Penfolds unique in the wine industry are personal re-corking clinics offered periodically. Because a wine can be destroyed when the cork deteriorates, Penfolds will test the wine to make sure it is still good, refill the bottle slightly if the wine level has dropped because of a bad cork, replace the cap and give it a recertification sticker.

"We have had collectors bring in 15 cases of bottles for us to check," said Mr. Lane. "We might spend a whole day with one person, or one person might be cradling a bottle they have had their whole life. The stories are amazing. We have had people buy first class airline tickets for a bottle of wine. They take photos of their bottle of wine in its seat. They have an airline ticket that says 'Penfold Wine'. At least that happened before 9-11. Now with all the heightened airline security it may not be so easy to book a seat for your bottle of wine."

The re-corking clinic is free. It is open to any Penfolds bottle, but people mainly bring the more valuable vintages.

"It is an ultimate after-sale service," said Mr. Lane. "A couple of wineries have a drop-off service, but there is no face-to-face service." Since 1990 Penfolds has recertified and checked about 35,000 bottles of wine. Penfolds is sold in Bermuda by Bristol Cellar Limited.