Wine Review - 2007 Fairview Mourvèdre: Is this wine corked or just crazy smelling?

So we open this bottle of South African Mourvèdre from Fairview Wine and Cheese, pour it into the decanter, give it about 15 minutes in there and then start to drink it.  First thing we get on the nose......mothballs.  Seriously, Grandma's attic mothballs.  We are not super familiar with Mourvèdre so we are kinda thrown off.

Are we maybe smelling cedar, not mothballs?  Nope it is mothballs.  It is not super unattractive just not usual, so we are trying to understand whether or not it might be corked.  Online research tells us that 'corked' smells like musty cardboard or old clothes so we are not sure if that is what this smells like or not.  Statistics on the percentage of corked wine range from 5% to 13% depending on the source so that means on average we are supposed to be getting a couple a month.  We don't think we get that many corked wines but maybe we just don't know what we should be looking for. 

That said, we still aren't sure.  It doesn't really taste bad, in fact, it is kind of funky.  Research on Mourvèdre says we should see dark colour with gamey-notes and spices with little fruit which we get overall.  It is just this mothball thing, again not terrible (off putting is too strong a term), it is just kind of strange.

We paid $20 (on sale from $25) so we invested a bit of cash on this one and so we are confused by the smell.  It is wicked dry with a long finish and plenty of body but that nose.....

Update at 60 minutes: So we are letting it decant more and more and it has not dissipated per se but it sort of blends in with the overall scents.  This is pushing us away from the idea that wine is corked but to say the nose is unique is a serious understatement.  We are still not 100% convinced but it smells a lot more like wine now than it did.

	Tasting Notes:	Score:
Sight (0-5)	Dark wine, but not as dark as the web would lead us to believe.	4.0
Smell (0-5)	Spice and so much funk it is unbelievable (mothballs? cedar? some kind of outer space oak?).	4.0 (?)
Taste (0-10)	Very dry and very extended finish (taste it for 5 minutes after a sip), we do get gamey, savoury / umami, and maybe some dark fruit...again unique.	8.0
	Total:	16.0 / 20  (80.0)

So we gave it an 80% but we are not sure how that should reflect the wine.  It tastes good and for us unique on the nose = okay.  But, we would certainly want to have a second bottle to try again however at $20 - $25 we won't be rushing out to get it.

This is yet another reason why drinking wine is cool....and never dull.

Keep on drinking!

Chris & Shannon