You might just have a little goldmine in your wine cellar

Search the wine cellar, check under the stairs. That bottle of wine, or maybe even a case, that you put aside a few decades ago might now be worth a small fortune. 

If you have some of the earliest releases of Wolf Blass's iconic Black Label red blend then you could just be sitting on a goldmine. 

Wolf Blass Black Label bottles could earn you a motza

Current Wolf Blass chief winemaker Chris Hatcher and Treasury Wine Estates' Global Marketing Director George Samios have put out a call try to track down some of the unopened treasures so they can use them for masterclasses and tastings. 

"We are probably down out our last few bottles of wines like the 1973 and other trailblazers and we want to buy them back from consumers, or are happy to swap them for current release wines if the owners would prefer," says Samios. 

With the current-release 2010 Wolf Blass Black Label retailing for $130, any lucky owners of the older wines "dating back to the mid '80s" might be able to strike a very attractive deal.

The Black Label is the single most successful wine on the Australian show circuit; the winner of no fewer than four Jimmy Watson trophies for best young red at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show and a total of 64 trophies and 298 gold medals to date.

Chris Hatcher is on the hunt for old bottles

The Wolf Blass Black Label red blend, first made in 1973, celebrates its 40^th vintage next year. 

I was lucky enough to attend a recent tasting at which all four Watson winners (the 73, 75 and 1998 are still stellar) were lined up alongside some younger wines. What a treat!

The Black Label has been available under screw cap closure since 2002, when it was also bottled under cork, and the two wines tasted very different, although both were intriguing in their own way. 

The wine under Stelvin was fresher, the wine under cork more nuanced (although the first wine opened was plagued by cork taint, underlining the gross fallibility of cork as a closure).