Campbells, Merchant Prince Rare Rutherglen Muscat, Rutherglen, Victoria, Australia NV

This Rutherglen Muscat has age written all over it -- and most notably in its hue, which is ebony in the glass with a walnut-coloured meniscus. It takes a long time (and a lot of heat and evaporation) for a white wine to attain a colour like this, and the wine's 400 g of residual sugar tells us that it would fall either into the 'Grand' or the 'Rare' catgories of Rutherglen Muscat. It can only be swirled in the glass with difficulty -- and then leaves the glass sides coated. The aromas are an assault course of warmth, fruit and time itself, layered out with extravagant aromatic sweetness and a kind of insinuating richness you'll find nowhere else; the flavours are heavy, dense, rich and reverberative, freighting down the tongue with treacle, citrus, spice, caramel and tar.

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