Ouch

[Nicklasss]

A very nice 2010 Michel Gros Chambolle tonight. Fruity, gamey, mineral, nice. 91.

A 20 % corked past it prime 1996 Cos d' Estournel. Still drinkable but ouch, it hurts.

A fabulous 2015 Siran. Just one glass but wow. 7/8 of the bottle will be drank tomorrow.

Nic

[DavidG]

Sorry to hear about the Cos.
Siran is killer QPR.

[jckba]

That sucks and I feel your pain. I know I have said this before, but retailers and wineries really need to change their tunes and policies with respect to corked wines as the wines are faulty and we as comsumers should not be carrying said burden of faulty bottles.

[robert goulet]

Hard to return a 22yr old wine.

[Nicklasss]

The 1996 Cos was still having some nice black purple fruit, but defitely hitting tertiary notes, with roasted green peppers, forrest floor, wet wood. So much sediments on the bottom, I think 15-20 % of the bottle went down the drain.

To the defense of the wine, my wine storage is 4 Celsius warmer than what is recommended so I guess the wine age more quickly. I should consume my Bordeaux between 12-18 years max I guess.

Nic

[jckba]

Hard to return a 22yr old wine.

Sure but I will maintain that corked is corked whether in a 2 year old wine or 22 year old wine and wineries need to do more to right this ship.

[JimHow]

How do you prove a wine was corked? Or cooked? Or tired? Or just “20% corked”?

[DavidG]

You’re right JC but there are practical hurdles. The consumer should be able to return the bottle to the retailer, who can offer a replacement or refund and get credit from the distributor. But most people don’t have receipts going back 20 years, and retailers don’t keep records that long. Once you get to that point the retailer can’t help you. So do you go to the winery?

That can be done for domestic wines. I’ve had a couple of pricey bottles replaced by that route but it’s not worth the hassle for less expensive wines. If the winery is out of that vintage you’ll likely get a bottle of a recent release rather than a refund of your retail cost which has been marked up by the distributor and retailer. It doesn’t work for imported wines as there’s no alternative system to the importer and distributor getting the bottle through customs and into your state.

Just switch to screwcaps and be done with it.

[danzur]

I opened a 375 of '96 Cos a couple of nights ago...very little sediment to my surprise. Mid-weight, lots of herbs, a bit of green pepper (actually Lisa said a lot of green pepper) in a really good way. Pretty much resolved at this point, not a very long finish...but a really nice, mature '96. I have a few more 375's that should be opened over the next year or 2.

I also opened a 375 of '01 Montrose that took an hour or so to hit it's stride. Much heavier, longer finish than the Cos (as expected). Very dark, dark fruits, blue fruits, pure, long finish. Needs time, maybe 5 years? .

Also found a stash of 2010 Pagodes de Cos locally, bought one to try, but was a poor example. Bottle, cork were perfect, but a blast of plastic and band aid that never blew off. I corked it for later but haven't found the guts to try it again yet.

And for good measure I opened a 375 of 2015 Cantenac Brown as it was close by and easily findable-after having the 3 above this came off as a spoofilated, heavy oaked, very ripe fruit bomb. Fragrant nose, mocha, coffee, but too much of everything at the moment. I hope this settles down and integrates over time, or maybe I shouldn't open this last after some older, more traditional Bordeaux?

[DavidG]

How do you prove a wine was corked? Or cooked? Or tired? Or just “20% corked”?

I agree with the point I think you’re making in that mildly cooked, tired, shut down, etc. are all so subjective that there really is no proof. It’s all opinion. Badly cooked should be easy if you’ve got a good relationship with a cooperative retailer.

Corked should be easy if the amount of TCA is more than 5 PPT or so, because the smell is obvious. If the retailer is insensitive to TCA or otherwise skeptical it gets more complicated, and likely too expensive to prove to bother fighting over it for a single bottle.

One way to prove corked when it’s not obvious is to open a second bottle for comparison. Side by side the difference is easy to distinguish. Even if the level of contamination is too low to smell the classic wet cardboard, the affected wine will be dull and muted and fruitless compared to a normal bottle. But this sacrifices a good bottle just to prove the point. Then you need the retailer to cover the cost of both bottles to be made whole.

The second way is to send the wine to be tested for a quantitative TCA and TBA measurement. That’s way too complicated and expensive unless you’re in the business and have had whole barrels or batches ruined. https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2018/12 ... ed-barrels

[DavidG]

Dan, that Pagodes with bandaid sounds like Brett.

[dstgolf]

Too bad on the Cos Nic but the MG sounded like it partially made up for the loss.

There are some advantages to paying an incredible premium price for wine,liquor and beer in Ontario. The LCBO policy used to be if the wine was tainted there were no questions asked no matter how old and you didn't require a receipt. Before the recent policy change the wine was refunded at what its most recent selling price was so you could actually make a profit from the purchase price. Recently they have insisted on receipts which is a little more difficult but the majority of futures or major purchases receipts have all been dumped into a folder and the hard part is sifting through hundreds of receipts to find the bottle in question. The refund is now the price that you purchased the wine for which is better than nothing and this can go back as far as you have a receipt for. In Quebec they have a one year limit to their return policy which is pretty useless for the Bordeaux's picked up there on futures. I have not seen a return policy anywhere else that can match the LCBO and for all of their shortcomings for a monopoly they do provide some reasonable service.

[jckba]

I think David and I are on the same page. Afterall if I find myself in a restaurant ordering off the wine list, upon tasting a flawed btl I would politely inform the sommelier that this btl is not sound and he or she would likely confirm this fact and then take back the flawed btl and then fetch another at no cost to me. It sucks that we as collectors of fine wine, do not get this same recourse when we choose to pull a cherished btl from our home cellar as we are the end user that is getting gipped of the experience. It’s a real issue in my eyes.

[Gerry M.]

Sadly, the 1996 Cos has been one of my most inconsistent bottles. Some have been spectacular and others have been DOA. It's almost scary to open one out of fear of what may come. I have read notes from others having the same experience.

[danzur]

David-yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was hoping it would blow off. Lisa thought it got better over a few hours, she wasn't nearly as offput by it as I was.

[stefan]

Nic, try to get your employer interested in finding a TCA antidote. But take care when working with concentrated TCA. When stefanJr was a postdoc, tried one experiment to trap TCA (he is a supramolecular chemist, so this is the kind of thing he does frequently). It was not successful and he refused ever again to work with TCA because despite the lab safeguards he ended up throwing away his clothes and his wallet (which he had thrown on a bench in the lab) and became supersensitive to that vile substance.

[Racer Chris]

I just used a $90 2012 Cabernet in my cooking last night because it was corked. I might have contacted Merryvale for a replacement but decided against going thru the trouble. The TCA odor wasn't real strong, and I could tell there was a good Cab behind the unpleasant smell, but it was too much for me to drink it.

[DavidG]

Dan, I’m ok with a little Brett and actually like a touch of the barnyard. Moreso than the bandaid version. Some of my friends won’t go near anything with a hint of Brett.

The wine writer Jerry Mead (RIP) would mail a vial of TCA powder for something like $5 to anyone who asked. Just a grain or two in a glass of water was enough to massively cork it. It was a great teaching tool. I kept the tightly closed vial wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil. Eventually threw it away.

I’ve never cooked with a corked wine. Afraid it might blunt the aromas and flavors of the food. I guess that didn’t happen Chris? Does cooking break down TCA?

[Claret]

I have some 02 Michele Gros Chambolle, he was one of my favorite Burg producers when I was ITB.

[Racer Chris]

I’ve never cooked with a corked wine. Afraid it might blunt the aromas and flavors of the food. I guess that didn’t happen Chris? Does cooking break down TCA?

The TCA doesn''t affect the cooked food.
My $50 sautéed mushrooms were excellent!

[sdr]

My local wine retailer asks that we return just the cork, not the bottle, to him for suspected corked wines. Apparently there are some California wineries to whom he can submit the cork to them for lab analysis. If they confirm, they will replace it with the same wine or the current vintage. Can’t say I tested it since I don’t drink California wine .

[DavidG]

I’ve never cooked with a corked wine. Afraid it might blunt the aromas and flavors of the food. I guess that didn’t happen Chris? Does cooking break down TCA?

The TCA doesn''t affect the cooked food.
My $50 sautéed mushrooms were excellent!

I’ll keep this in mind the next time we come across a corked bottle. Good to know, thanks.

[jckba]

And I really think that the reason why corked wines peeve me so much is that they rob me of an experience that I paid for, and perhaps had classified growths not multiplied in price like they have over the course of the last several decades, I might have had less of an issue but a $100+ corked btl is a tough pill to swallow.

[JimHow]

I hear you, jckba, I just wonder what is a fair recourse.
We had an issue a while back with a BWEer in a Boston restaurant involving a disputedly "cooked" 1975 Petrus.
It was an ugly little incident.