So, we had grandma and my in laws here for Champagne day, and splurged on a 2006 Dom Perignon…but it had a universally agreed on odor of skunk that persisted for the life of the bottle.
It didn’t blow off and I feel like it was a far substandard exemplar.
Do I write it off? Email Moët? Take an empty back to the store?
I don’t even send dishes back in a restaurant, what do I do if I have a substandard bottle of this icon?
I hate making a fuss but this is the first time I would be willing to
approach Costco… or Moët?
Any advice to help me gird my loin and step up to…who?
Pardon my timidity, I am at a loss about how to proceed!
If it was all poured down the sink, then you really are relying on the trust of the folks running the store. If they know you well, then they probably trust you, but if an occasional customer it would put them in a very difficult position. Even if the wine is now oxidised, by showing you’ve not simply drunk the whole bottle and then claimed it faulty, every wine store should treat this as a genuine faulty bottle.
FWIW I’m really bad, in almost never returning faulty bottles (in fact just the once for one that suffered secondary fermentation). The main reasons for this are that I like cellaring wines and often won’t open the bottle for a good number of years after purchase, and because much is bought over the internet. The logistics of a return and the length of time make it a bigger deal than just popping back to my local store. I really should however contact the producer when I get a corked or pemoxed bottle - if only to reinforce to them that TCA / cork failure is a genuine issue - and they are the people who can do something about it.
Anton, did your bottle come in the fancy box or was it loose? Also, do you equate the skunk odor with TCA or was it literally like what you’d get from a skunky bottle of Heineken?
Regardless, the 2006 is a current release, no reason for it to have skunk odors. I’ve it a few times and it’s an awesome Dom.
Does light ruin wine in the same way that it does beer? I’ve never experienced that, so I don’t know. It could also be reduction. That can taste pretty skunky, and DomP is handled reductively. Their product is usually very consistent, though, so I’d be surprised to find one bottle that showed that more strongly than others, especially without it blowing off with air.
This is what I’ve always read. I know light can ruin wine, but I’ve never heard of anything resembling a skunk odor from that. I’m still thinking reduction.
