ADELAIDE, Australia — An Australian winemaker said Friday he was "numb" after a malfunctioning forklift destroyed more than Aus$1 million ($1.1 million) of his prized shiraz.
Some 462 cases of the 2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove Shiraz, which sells for Aus$185 a bottle, smashed to the ground as it was being loaded for export to the United States.
It cost winemaker Sparky Marquis one third of his annual production.
"So how do I feel? Gut-wrenched, shocked, numb," he told reporters.
"When they opened up the container they said it was like a murder scene," he added. "There was red everywhere.
"But it smelled phenomenal."
Brett McCarthur, of Kerry Logistics, said the company moves more than 20,000 containers a year and had never had such a malfunction before.
"It was very hard to make that call to Sparky," he said.
The saving grace was that the wine was fully insured, with assessors already on the scene.
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