-
- Wine damage, and what to do about it...
Today I visited a liquor store that, for this side of Tokyo, is very enlightened in its wine offerings and knowledge. I was reporting to the owner that a bottle of Spanish red from the Priorat district that I'd bought from him earlier had been damaged. The cork had broken 1/4 of the way up from the bottom when I attempted to pull it, something that very, very rarely happens to me. The wine itself was suffering from obvious signs of oxidation.
The shop's proprietor went into a flurry of apologies and was quickly too flustered to deal with things in any practical way. Apparently I may have been the first customer to bring any such complaint to him. His store has a wide and interesting ranges of wine, and most other forms of fermented and distilled beverages know to man. As we talked about a range of his practices, one thing that became clear was that all the wine on his shelves, in his glassed off and temperature controlled wine section, stayed standing from when it entered the shop until it walked out the door with a customer. Sometimes this took months. And almost all of his wines have traditional corks and caps, not screwtops or other stopper alternatives. The probable reason for the condition of my wine was becoming clearer, though the damage may also have occurred before he ever got the bottles. Since he was in such a flustered state I'll be visiting him again in the next couple of days to see what he wants to do about the bottle.
This experience got me thinking, and I'd like to propose a few questions to get some discussion going here:
1) What kinds of damage have you encountered in your wine drinking at restaurants, or at home?
2) What are the probable causes for that damage?
3) What have you done when you've detected the damage, and, alternatively, what haven't you done that you later wished you had done?
At different times in my life I've drunk wine and eaten out at restaurants, from the cheapest to the absolutely most expensive, on a daily basis for extended periods. Since the beginning of my wine drinking career I've had no problems sending damaged bottles back and talking as necessary to sommeliers, maitre d's, and owners. However I've also been a guest at table with many people (sometimes heads of divisions of universities or corporations, or even of the whole shebang) who have real trouble doing so.
So how do we detect damaged wine, and what do we do about it?
-
218 - Reply by ChipDWood, Jun 11.
One of the little tricks I've used, when appropriate, is to simply see if I can spin the capsule.
Obviously this won't work for twist-offs, certain Italian vino, - and it's not a 100% certain way of detecting anything- but it can lead you to any signs of seepage that may have occurred in the past by sticking or feeling "tacky".
While gently grappling with the capsule, press down a bit on the cork. It should "give" a bit- but be careful when handling bottles with much age on them as the corks will soften over the years if properly stored.
If NOT properly stored, that cork won't budge in the least bit, and I'll avoid the bottle. Again, not 100%, but it's about cutting down the percentage that you'll get a bad one.
Lastly, regardless of either of those two indicators, I'll usually hold the bottle up to the light and look for the level. Once finding it, I look for the color- not to see its actual color mind ya- but whether or not it's clear. Sometimes, even if the first two little tests don't make you suspicious of a bottle, a cooked wine's clouded appearance under the light can give it away.
The result? If I'm suspicious at all - particularly in the case of seepage- just stay away. And ya win ;).
Read an auction catalog sometime. Certain descriptors are put there for a reason and are a key to determine how that wine's going to behave once out of the bottle before having to pull the cork. Particularly the capsule. Even if the capsule's slightly corroded that's very likely just a natural occurrence over years of storage. For wines with some age on them, some amount of damage or wear is natural. What we're looking for are "signs of seepage"...
http://auction.morrellwineauctions.com/lotdescription.do?auctionId=249&page=17&lotId=97766
So, there's a couple. Even using these little tricks, a bad bottle has gotten through every once in a great while, but I've been able to keep the odds of it happening pretty low.
Last note: Superficial damage like bin soiled or torn labels are a buyer's best friend ;).
-
1136
- Reply by dmcker, Jun 11.
Yeah, sticky caps (and dribbles down the neck onto the label) are not good. Conversely, however, caps that spin too easily, especially after the bottle is several years old, can also cover driedout corks, like mine for the 2004 vintage I mention above.
Another tell-tale bad sign I've found is when the cork has sunk too much down into the neck. And no, I don't go punching corks to test them on very old bottles! Once had a cork drop into the bottle on a 40+ year old Calon Segur we were transporting--just from the vibration of carrying it while walking.
Old bottle judgement and handling is in a category of its own. How about damage in younger bottles?
And what have you done when the bad bottle has 'gotten through'?
-
43 - Reply by Robert Johnston, Jun 11.
I've had countless oxidised wines in restaurants -- but if it's a cheap house wine, I've never seen much point sending it back; you're only going to get an equally oxidised replacement bottle. It's because they store them standing up at too-high temperatures. Dry cork and the air gets in. To give them a bit of credit, it could be more to do with transport than storage; anyway, you gets what you pays for.
If it's a good (expensive) bottle, I send it back -- but I've often encountered 'sommeliers' who claim they've 'drunk it before and that's how it tastes'. In that case, as we say in Glasgow, yer ontae plums.
(tr: forget it and go somewhere else)
-
1136
- Reply by dmcker, Jun 11.
Obviously that sommelier has lost his head somewhere else in his anatomy. At which point (though it has rarely happened in my experience, it has happened a couple of times...) I escalate and ask for his boss. Though I try to be as smooth as possible and have the sommelier and others taste it for their education, I feel the need to keep the fist firm under the velvet glove since, after all, I am paying for it.
Damage might be at the restaurant, or might be before them, but I do feel it's essential to improving service and general industry consciousness to point out damage. Plus I never want to pay for something that would do better in the salad dressing...
-
30 - Reply by corskier, Jun 12.
A while back I was served a wine that I had a part in making and the bottle was flawed. Like a few others have mentioned it was stored behind the bar, upright, with the cork shoved back in. I'd ordered a glass of the wine, an d as soon as it came out you could smell that it was heavily oxidised. I explained this to the server, asked for a new glass, and was promptly brought a new one... from the same bottle. I thought it was silly to argue the point, but when I went in to work the next day (the wine was my boss's private label) Gus was pretty cross that I hadn't made more of a fuss about it. Gave me a lecture on the necessity of informing the restaurant the error of their ways because the next person that ordered that wine probably got it from the same old bottle, and it may have been their first (and only) experience with that wine based off a first impression of a flawed example.
Long story short: if it's flawed, please send it back. We work hard to make the wine as great as possible, and we want you to have the best possible experience from that bottle.
-
43
- Reply by Robert Johnston, Jun 12.
It's not an easy thing to do, but I think your experience, particularly in regard of your having been involved in making the wine, is instructive in how important it is to report faulty wines in restaurants.
The problem -- I think -- is that many of us are not schooled enough in wine faults to have the confidence it takes to report them.
One thing I really missed on the WSET course I took last year was any kind of teaching towards the identification of wine faults; I can identify oxidisation now, but only because I've read enough independently to know what it tastes like (initially brown sugar, and then when it's more advanced, the musty taste of sherry -- please correct me if I'm wrong!).
I still couldn't reliably identify brett or reduction, or any other common wine faults bar TCA infection (although I'm told reduction tastes like phosphorus -- I haven't encountered it, in that case). This makes me think that your average sommelier probably couldn't either, so even were I able to spot them, I'd only antagonise the restaurant staff be taken for a fussy customer.
Also, if a given sommelier has only ever served a faulted wine, he has nothing to compare it to, and so will, as I wrote earlier, believe that's 'just how it tastes'. And in some cases, he won't be wrong -- there are plenty of wines that use oxidisation as a legitimate flavour component.
But if you KNOW, you know, and sure, you should make sure the restaurant knows too, as politely and firmly as you can, otherwise, as you say, the winemaker is getting a terribly raw deal.
-
43
- Reply by Robert Johnston, Jun 12.
As an an unnecessary addendum to my TLDR post up there, I think the idea that was germinating was that winemakers could be more closely involved in wine education, to the point of providing a faulty wine along with a good one -- or even a bretty one, a corked one, and a reduced one with a good one -- to help educate the people who will ultimately be the ambassadors for their product. That way we have a concrete taste memory of the faults, and a solid way to identify them when we serve the wine.
I know Randall Grahm keeps faulted wines purely to help him and his workers more finely identify faults and combat them; I think it would be very helpful for producers and consumers were this practice opened up.
The OTHER thing I wanted to say was this (and I'm sure dear reader is bored and off to Digg by now anyway): If we're served a cold meal, or one with a hair or a bug in it, we are outraged and send it back. So it should be with faulted wines, and we as consumers must make this attitude common to those who serve us our wine. Especially when it has a 300% mark-up.
-
1136
- Reply by dmcker, Jun 12.
Good points, all!
So why don't we start a catalog of wine faults we've encountered, here in this thread? Either out at restaurants, or from purchases we've brought home? Try to build a useful resource for other Snooth readers?
-
1738 - Reply by Gregory Dal Piaz, Jun 15.
I have been a terrible wine consumer, to the point where I generally no longer frequent a restaurant that doesn't allow byob except for very specific occasions.
Wrong vintage, wrong temp, wrong designated bottling, wrong glasses,corked, cooked, refermenting wine, it goes on and on and it's not worth it.
Just let me pay to drink my own wine. $20-30 is fine for corkage, give me decent glass if you're charging that much though, and let me enjoy my experience in your establishment!
-
1136
- Reply by dmcker, Jun 15.
So Greg, what problems with wines you've purchased for home (or byob) use, and any recommendations about what to do when such damage is encountered?
