I thought I'd report back on this, which I asked about a few weeks back. I'm not much of an oenophile so bear with me!
Knowing that this wine was pretty much certainly off, as people here had suggested it should have been consumed about ten years ago, I wasn't expecting too much. The cork was pretty much black at the bottom, but I decided to give it a taste anyway. The nose was extremely pungent, quite sour, like a mix of dark chocolate and redcurrants. The colour was more on the brown side of red (as expected with the age) but it was relatively clear with only a few bits of sediment. Unfortunately the flavour was too much! Extremely sour and slightly bitter, and so I proceeded to send the rest down the sink for fear of making myself ill!
Shame though, as this was a wedding present from a good friend and colleague who looked quite proud of the age of the bottle. I think he may have been fleeced by an unscrupulous wine merchant into buying an off bottle of wine for an inflated price.