These are the sort of things we try and get sorted out BEFORE the wine hits the floor…
Was opening up a case of Frascati Superiore and, in perfect suspended animation like a lab specimen, was a spider and its web. You could still see smaller strings of the web, and the spider itself didn’t look crushed. Almost pretty; wish I could have found my camera before we sent it back.
Several times we have received wines (usually also from Italy surprisingly enough) that don’t have corks but still contain most of their wine and have foils in place.
ONce, when I worked at Antoine’s in NOLA, I pulled a bottle of Sancerre out of a case and it had a museum quality specimen of a huge beatle with a beautiful iridescent green shell. This thing was so big and so perfect that some disgruntled winery guy MUST have put in on purpose.
Knowing that the importer was making a sales call from NYC soon, I put it aside and, when he came in for a working lunch, I had a waiter put it in an ice bucket and then present it to him with great flourish.
This one episode made me not drink Rose for 6 months. I was tasting a hand-bottled Rose shiner at such’n’such winery. I felt something in my mouth after a few glasses. Pulled out of my mouth earwig parts. Then looked in the bottle (didn’t really pay much attention at first) and saw other earwig floaters in there. I almost upchucked on the spot. And this was finished wine. (they have since gone out of business.)