#bleasdale

He drew me a sample of tawny-coloured, viscous fluid from the barrel at our feet. This heavenly drink was what he’d produced from the sludge in the bottom of the barrels.

An exquisite aroma of old tawny port rose from the glass, fathomlessly complex and imbued with the character of great age. In the mouth it was rich and viscous, sweet – but not too sweet – and explosively flavoured. The finish was so long it lasted several minutes.

This, Hotker informed me, was the new flagship fortified wine of Bleasdale, called Fortis et Astutis, an old tawny port style packed in a broad-based 500ml bottle based on the design of a ship’s decanter and priced at $125. It’s 17 per cent alcohol and has a declared blended age of more than 20 years.

Hotker told me that when he entered it in the Rutherglen Wine Show, which is Australia’s most specialized fortified wine judging, it did no good at all. “It wasn’t sweet enough to compete against the old Rutherglen muscats and tokays, I guess,” he shrugged. But it is a beautiful wine.

A couple of weeks later, the package won the top prize in Australia’s Wine Industry Design Competition 2013, the $5,000 CCL Production Prize. The judging was chaired by wine marketer Lisa McGuigan, who described the bottle as “A winner from all angles.” (full results at boutiquewines.com.au)

The squat bottle has a neck coiled with rope, in keeping with the nautical theme. This is a link with Bleasdale’s founder, Frank Potts, who served under Admiral Horatio Nelson and had sailed the world by the age of 21. The winning bottle was modeled on those used by the Royal Navy: short and squat, their low centre of gravity keeping them from toppling over in rough seas.

Hotker laughed as he told me the origin of the Latin name, Fortis et Astutis. It’s the motto of the Potts family and means ‘strong and cunning’, which he thinks is appropriate.