Doesn’t it take some years for heat damage to show its effect on the wine? I get nervous whenever I encounter a cork with odd soak fingers even if, it drinks well early on.
I wouldn’t use this as a generalization about gray market vs. regular import channels, but I’d definitely be worried. That cork looks terrible, and not just because of the seepage. It looks compressed compared to the other one, which makes me think heat. Plus, it’s obviously saturated, rather than just having a little wine on the outside. It could just be a bad cork, but I’d want to check out another bottle from the same bottling and shipment.
I completely disagree with the comments saying if the wine tastes good now it’s fine. That makes no sense. The wine could definitely be somewhat heat damaged, taste fine now (especially without a perfectly sound bottle for comparison), and not age properly because of the damage. I’m assuming you intend to age some of those bottles for more than a couple of years.
It certainly can.
This is indeed my concern. I had intended to store these bottles long term. It doesn’t sound appealing to drink through a case of the same wine over the next 6 months.
Do they have the French revenue stamps on top? That’s usually a tip-off that they were purchased on the secondary market and not directly from the winery.
Separately, if both the CM and Bourgogne were available at the store at the same time, isn’t it likely that they arrived in the same shipment and were treated the same way along the way? Is the importer strip the same for both? That would suggest it might be a one-off cork problem.
Agree that if it’s a one off bad cork then no worries. If the others are like that than I’d be worried.
Regardless, before blaming the importer (gray market) the issues may not have been his fault. It could have been a cork issue, poor storage early on, etc. To many potential issues and not enough info here to state positively one way or the other.
Not wines the likes of which are being discussed here. Nor is it irrelevant. If this wine had come from Kermit Lynch, for example, the case would be replaced with a click of a mouse. However, I have never had a situation like this with Kermit Lynch, or any other solid importer. Their wines arrive cold, on temperature controlled trucks, winter, spring, summer and fall (and all of my experience with them suggests that the wines get to them in similar fashion). The only time I buy gray market wines, for myself or for retail sale, is if I know and trust the importer and have had a conversation with him/her regarding the source of the wine in question and I am assured that the wine is going to be perfect when I receive it. Absent that, I wouldn’t touch gray market stuff. These wines are too expensive to be gambling with handlng issues, and given the risk of getting a corked bottle in 20 years is gambling enough. My $.02.
Let’s jump on distributors/wholesalers a bit: It’s still not universal practice to make summertime deliveries in refrigerated trucks; some do, some don’t (too many don’t, and more than none is too many).
There, I feel better; please resume the original discussion.
No French tax stamps on the capsule and same importer strip on all bottles.
Rather than get into a situation of blaming the importer, I will contact them directly after I examine the other bottles. I do think they’ll stand by their product and make it right should the other bottles be of similar appearance.
That being said, I do know for a fact that they do source much of their wine from the gray market, as do the many many retailers in the U.S.
Discussion on this wine from late last year, with some indications that it may be a producer issue rather than importer/gray market (latter part of the thread):
Data please.
Thanks Steve. Interesting. I’ll be checking the ullage on my remaining bottles.
People in the trade could speak to this more knowledgeably, but my sense is that shipping is less of an issue than it once was.
Parker, to his credit, flagged this back in the 80s and lauded Kermit Lynch for using refrigerated containers. In those, many importers didn’t. I think that greatly increased awareness. Consumers and retailers started asking questions about the handling.
I think – and this is where it would be interesting to hear from people ITB – it’s a lot easier to ship via reefers now. I shipped nine cases personally from London some years ago. So if you’re gray marketing, you don’t have to fill a container. Seabrook or Ziegler are happy to consolidate cases on their containers.
Of course, lots of bad things can happen going to and from the ship, on the back of the delivery truck at this end or in the store. But a lot of those risks are there with even the most conscientious importers.
It’s impossible to say anything good or bad about the condition of the wines based on the cork without knowing what the original ullage was. If the ullage was super tiny, then a 5 degree F change could cause this…and I wouldn’t worry about that sort of temp increase (just as an example).
It’s possible this occurred in a warehouse prior to shipment, either the producers warehouse (which seems unlikely) or a consolidation warehouse (more likely). Even if the CM and Bourgogne were in the same warehouses (and shipping reefer), the pallets of wine are generally stacked quite high, with the pallets on top being significantly warmer than those on the bottom (unless they have a great air handling system, even so there’s always a noticeable difference).
same importer strip on all bottles.
Then by definition they are not grey market.
Exactly - and much of the gray market wines that come into the US are from pretty progressive and aggressive retailers that have a long history of dealing with alternative import sources, who to use to ship, always using reefer etc. Many of the biggest importers in the country today are using their wholesalers to import and ship their wines, instead of doing it themselves, warehousing in the states and shipping product to each state. Jorge Ordonez is a classic example of this…
I’m not so sure about that Eric. It seems rather unlikely that these 2010 Burgs were purchased by the importer/merchant and stored for free somewhere in the U.S. or France for two years before being distributed to customers who paid for the wines as futures. I certainly doubt the domaine held onto the wines for this period of time. Hey, all conjecture on my part. I really don’t know. I just want to drink good wine 
If the merchant bought the wine from a ‘normal’ importer then the bottle would have that importer’s label on it. The importer had to get approval from the TTB, and the wine couldn’t be sold without the approved labels.
The merchant does their own gray market importing, and since it had their back label on it then it was brought in by the merchant (hence gray market).
I agree with the comments that gray market says nothing about the careful (or not) handling of the wine.
? It could be the same gray market importer on both.
My guess is that most of the H-N that comes into this country is via grey market.
None of H-N’s “official” importers are are of notable size, i.e. the big guys such as Diageo, Dreyfus, Kermit, or Rosenthal, etc.
I believe Atherton may be the largest in size, and they pretty much distribute solely in California, and to some private
collectors around the country.