Last night we opened a 2012 KB Sonoma Coast. Wine had percolated up through the cork as there was sticky residue underneath the capsule. When I extracted the cork, there was a red streak along the entire length. While the wine didn’t taste ‘bad’ it definitely didn’t have those cherry cola flavors that are typical of KB. Much more astringent.
It happens to all wines, I get it, but I’m curious if it’s worth mentioning to the fine folks at KB? I’m confident the storage conditions have been ideal as I am the original owner having received direct from the mailing list. I’ve opened other 2012s that did not have this issue.
Asking people on a wine forum if they have any experience with dealing with a fairly large, established winemaker/winery seems reasonable to me. And not sure if this is what one considers “airing”,
That being said, I can’t offer any assistance to the OP’s question .
An unsound cork isn’t the only possible culprit. I had a direct from winery to wine storage facility instance where I happened to follow the tracking info and watched as the OWC trio of bottles shipped on Thursday to SoCal, missed delivery on Friday due to shipper issues, sat in a truck all weekend and was delivered on Monday. The temps over the weekend reached 90 degrees which insured the wine in the truck exceeded that mark. On Monday I went to the storage facility, opened the box and crate and found a red drop on the tissue wrapping one of the bottles just below the bottom of the capsule, popped the cork and saw the telltale track of red along one side of the cork. I don’t think anything was wrong with the cork originally just mishandling during shipment. I was shipped a replacement from the vintner.
Their customer service has always been fine, though I’ve never had an off bottle, so I don’t know how they respond to that.
Having said that, I don’t really know what to make of “While the wine didn’t taste ‘bad’ it definitely didn’t have those cherry cola flavors that are typical of KB.” I don’t think of KB tasting like cherry cola, or that it would be a good thing if it did, and I can’t really connect that comment to some sort of flaw in the wine or the cork.
So if you’re going to contact them about it, you might think of a better way to describe what you think is wrong with the bottle. If you’ve had other ones of this bottle and this was noticeably worse, then that might be a better way to proceed.
Normally, if the cork were as you described and the wine tasted off, I would have thought of heat damage as the culprit. A hot bottle can have the wine expand and leak through the cork. Given what you describe of the provenance, I guess that probably would have only happened during shipping, but then it would have probably affected the other bottles too.
Maybe I could have described it better. The wine was flat and somewhat astringent. To me, KB is a rather intense pinot with depth; this was not that.
The only reason I brought it up here is because it was just one bottle. Like I said, I’ve had several others from the same shipment that were flawless. I was just curious if it was even worth mentioning to them over a single bottle, or if I should just chalk it up as a loss and drink another.
I think the correct answer is, if you believe it was a flawed product, contact them and see if they’ll give you some kind of replacement or credit.
I think what most people would do in your situation is just forget about it and move on. I’m not implying that is what you ought to do, just that I think that’s what happens most of the time.
If you do so, let us know what kind of response you get. It’s always good to get a feel for that as we make tough decisions about which wineries to support.
I buy from the wineries so I know I am getting a wine that hasn’t gone through poor handling. If a wine is bad which is very rare I will contact the winery for a replacement.
If you have had others and thus was off, I say contact the winery. I’m sure they would actually appreciate the feedback as they are in the business to make sure people are happy.
Who cares what the title of the thread says IMO. He’s not blasting the winery and it’s a WB post. I’ve read headlines in Newspapers that are far different than the content in the article.
WB seems like the perfect forum for someone to ask questions like this. Hopefully the OP has a positive outcome with KB. Please report back.
I have experienced very good customer serivce from KB.
Replaced a corked bottle. They also generously adressed shipping issues when they arose.
Contact them. I believe they will make good.