So, when you bring a bottle to a wine dinner, does it count if t's not drinkable

[Chris_Seiber]

@Stuart BeauneHead Niemtzow

That’s why the idea of bringing a corked or spoiled bottle of wine anywhere always mystifies me. Why wait to find out? To say nothing of the need to remove sediment, etc…or aerate.

The overwhelming majority of bottles at tasting dinners I’ve attended were not opened in advance. I find most people, including knowledgeable collectors of great bottles, either don’t believe in the benefit of decanting wines in advance or don’t want to hassle with it. Certainly, you have every right to feel differently on the subject (and I tend to take your view more than theirs).

And as mentioned earlier, nobody at the dinners I attend cares if someone’s bottle turns out to be corked - there are always plenty of bottles. So nobody is sweating the need to screen for flawed bottles before the dinner.

[Ethan_Abraham]

@Chris Seiber

@Stuart BeauneHead Niemtzow

That’s why the idea of bringing a corked or spoiled bottle of wine anywhere always mystifies me. Why wait to find out? To say nothing of the need to remove sediment, etc…or aerate.

The overwhelming majority of bottles at tasting dinners I’ve attended were not opened in advance. I find most people, including knowledgeable collectors of great bottles, either don’t believe in the benefit of decanting wines in advance or don’t want to hassle with it. Certainly, you have every right to feel differently on the subject (and I tend to take your view more than theirs).

And as mentioned earlier, nobody at the dinners I attend cares if someone’s bottle turns out to be corked - there are always plenty of bottles. So nobody is sweating the need to screen for flawed bottles before the dinner.

I (and I imagine others) could probably get in trouble for opening and tasting a wine at work. Considering most wine dinners are weeknights… I guess early morning is an option, but then you are committed to a 12 hour in advance opening.

[jcoley3]

Based on some of the stories from the concurrent thread about funny stories from OLs, the one thing we can say for certain is that there are always enough bottles…

[Bob_Hughes]

Always bring a back-up.

IMO, the “golden rule” of off-lines.

[Jeff_Vaughan]

For me it is not about keeping score, it is making sure I am contributing to the event. If I brought a flawed wine, I would not feel like I contributed. If my wine just sucks, well that is something different.

I always bring back ups.

[Bob_Hughes]

I think that’s a good way of looking at it, Jeff - I want to feel like I contributed to the gathering.

And we are talking only about flawed wine here - if my personal tastes don’t allow me to appreciate the wine someone else brought tonight dinner, that’s on me, not them.

[dteng]

@Jeff Vaughan

For me it is not about keeping score, it is making sure I am contributing to the event. If I brought a flawed wine, I would not feel like I contributed. If my wine just sucks, well that is something different.

I always bring back ups.

What if you bring DRC and it turns out to be corked? Should you feel bad that you didn’t bring a back up?

[DougS]

I almost always bring two bottles if it’s just me or 3-4 if my wife is also there. Some of that can be thought of as backup, but usually it all gets opened. Some times there is too much wine already and a bottle or two comes home unopened. There have been times when I’ve brought one bottle that’s particularly expensive (for me) and nothing else. I don’t really care what other people do as long as they bring something that they’re looking forward to having. Backups are nice but in no way expected.

[Stuart_BeauneHead_Niemtzow]

@Ethan Abraham

@Chris Seiber

@Stuart BeauneHead Niemtzow

That’s why the idea of bringing a corked or spoiled bottle of wine anywhere always mystifies me. Why wait to find out? To say nothing of the need to remove sediment, etc…or aerate.

The overwhelming majority of bottles at tasting dinners I’ve attended were not opened in advance. I find most people, including knowledgeable collectors of great bottles, either don’t believe in the benefit of decanting wines in advance or don’t want to hassle with it. Certainly, you have every right to feel differently on the subject (and I tend to take your view more than theirs).

And as mentioned earlier, nobody at the dinners I attend cares if someone’s bottle turns out to be corked - there are always plenty of bottles. So nobody is sweating the need to screen for flawed bottles before the dinner.

I (and I imagine others) could probably get in trouble for opening and tasting a wine at work. Considering most wine dinners are weeknights… I guess early morning is an option, but then you are committed to a 12 hour in advance opening.

Yes…taking a sip or a smell…and banging the cork back in…whenever you can get to it. It’s not about aeration or even any effort, IMO. Solves the issue of bringing a bad bottle. Of course, with pop and pour (which seems to be the norm at such events), I’d guess that some good bottles seem bad. I can’t tell you how many bottles of Chablis I’ve had that I thought were bad when the cork was popped…and…later turned out fine.

[Merrill_Lindquist]

@D@vid Bu3ker

@Stuart BeauneHead Niemtzow

Is there really any reason not to check out the wine beforehand? I never bring anything to a local gathering I haven’t at least checked out , if not cleaned and aerated.

I do understand if you’re flying…that might change things a bit…but…flying/shaking shortly before serving can’t help a wine show well at any rate.

Technically it is illegal in most places to travel with an opened container, and in many other places to bring in an opened container.

You saved me those words and thoughts - thanks, Mr. Bu3ker. What up with the new signature? Sets me off balance.

[Merrill_Lindquist]

@Brian Tuite

I always tote 2-3 bottles to every offline just in case.

And everywhere else you go . Always a pleasure to cross paths with you, Brian.

[Merrill_Lindquist]

@Eric LeVine

If possible, it is always nice to bring a backup. That said, if I am flying in and bringing wine on a trip, that is the one situation where I don’t. It is always a struggle as it is to have luggage room, and the last thing you want is to travel BACK home with unopened backups.

This makes total sense. But I fall even further into the Type-A camp, bringing along (even when I am traveling), a back-up bottle. My back-up is always the same wine I committed to bring, unless I have only one of that, then I will approximate.

Yeah, sometimes I get left in NYC or DC or Boston with an extra bottle - sometimes my own and something I have in very limited supply. Someone gets lucky with a gift bottle, or an extra bottle poured at a tasting. It’s wine, folks. Wine.

[Chris_Seiber]

@Jeff Vaughan

For me it is not about keeping score, it is making sure I am contributing to the event. If I brought a flawed wine, I would not feel like I contributed. If my wine just sucks, well that is something different.

I always bring back ups.

That’s a good way of looking at it, and I understand your outlook. Though again, if you’re a longer-term repeat player in the tasting group and have presumably always held up your end, I don’t think you or the others are likely to be worried about you having done your share when a nice wine you brought on one occasion turns out to have been corked. I can see how it’s different if this is a one-off tasting or a first time with a new group.

[Jeff_Vaughan]

@dteng

@Jeff Vaughan

For me it is not about keeping score, it is making sure I am contributing to the event. If I brought a flawed wine, I would not feel like I contributed. If my wine just sucks, well that is something different.

I always bring back ups.

What if you bring DRC and it turns out to be corked? Should you feel bad that you didn’t bring a back up?

Dan, unfortunately I don’t play in that league but if I could afford to bring one, I could certainly afford to bring a less expensive back up.

[Bob_Hughes]

And with all due respect to Dan (and I know he is a Yankee fan, so I do actually respect him ), his post misses the common sense aspects of why I bring back-ups.

In it’s simplest form, if I am going to a BYOB with my wife, I always bring back-ups - I want to be able to drink a nice wine with my meal. I can’t imagine anyone here not doing the same thing if you are only going out with your spouse in order to ensure that you have something nice to drink with your meal.

So I guess the way I look at it is, if I’m willing to do that for myself, why wouldn’t I also extend the same courtesy to other people I’m dining with?

And to take it a step further, I generally try to do exactly what Merrill suggested, although I do realize in certain cases that is impractical - if it’s a Bordeaux themed meal, I will pick out a bottle that I know I have at least two of, so that we can in fact maximize our odds of drinking the wine that I intended to bring. But I realize in some cases, the bottle may be limited enough that there is no way you can bring the same wine as a back-up - understood.

[Jeff_Vaughan]

I agree Bob. I started to post the same thought about going to BYO’s but I struggled with writing it in a way that conveyed the point as eloquently as you. I guess that is why I work with numbers instead of words!


Edited for grammar

[Ken_V]

I’ve been bringing the same corked bottle of Giacosa to offlines for year, and no one has caught on yet.

[dcornutt]

You didn’t make the wine. I don’t think this is controllable.
Backups are nice and important if available but sometimes you only have a singleton.
You take your chances with that.

[Anton_D]

I approach this with a charitable heart - full credit to someone, even if the wine is bad.

Too many different circumstances for me to think of any hard and fast rule.

I have my own “Catholic guilt,” so always bring a back up, but I don’t inflict this neurosis on others. As someone already mentioned, I’ve never gone to a group function where we ended up short of wine!

Full credit for effort to the bringers of potentially good wine gone bad.

[Walter_Nissen]

Given that the rate of bad bottles is about 5-10%, it seems silly to bring a backup in a situation where the problem is more often than not an excess, rather than a shortage, of great wine. To have to pull a backup from storage, transport it, and then put it back nine times out of ten?