The road never smelled so good...

I was moving wine from our house that we are selling to offsite storage and my hatchback somehow flew open and four cases of wine fell out and smashed on the road. 96 salon…Joseph swan pinot from the 70s and 80s…grand cru burgundy…

What’s your worst wine disaster?

You win…unfortunately.

I come from atop the mountain, baby
Where the people come to pray
I comes from atop the mountain baby
Where the people come to pray

There ain’t no truth in action
'Less you believe it anyway

I was riding down the road one day
Someone hit a possum
Riding down the road one day
Someone hit a possum

The road was his end
His end was that road, so they say

Whoa, possum, possum, possum, possum
Whoa, possum, possum, possum, possum
Whoa, possum, possum, your end is the road

I was riding down the road one day
Someone hit a possum
Riding down…

Yup

A long time ago, returning from a circuit through the wine regions of Europe, I packed eight bottles of wine in a soft suitcase. When I picked the bag off the carousel at JFK, I sniffed and said to myself, “Hmm, that smells like Burgundy.” And, indeed, it was a bottle of aged Remoissenet Latricieres-Chambertin.

The other seven bottles survived. The funny thing was that the Latricieres was wrapped in a Robert Mondavi T-shirt. The Latricieres was old enough that the wine washed out without any stains.

No doubt, that sucks Barry!!

And I was just lamenting breaking a bottle of Gonon. Wah, pales in comparison.

This reminds me of a friend who worked in Vista (the domestic Peace Corps) in Tennessee in the 1970s. He told of getting a call from someone in a family he’d gotten to know to let him know that one of their brothers had hit a possum (or was it a racoon?) while driving a county dump truck. My friend was invited over for grilled road kill and moonshine.

Bet that meat would have gone well with Barry’s lost bottles.

Dropped a gift bag containing a half bottle of '96 d’Yquem immediately after it was handed to me. Fortunately the bag was surprisingly water tight, and only about 2.5 oz was lost.

but this isn’t the one you want to win. Sorry to hear about the loss.

Thanks. The Champagne and youngish Burgundy sucks to lose but those older Joseph Swans are pretty heart breaking. Likely unreplaceable.

4 cases? Totally sucks. Lost a bottle of the rare Tesseron cognac once when I set it down too hard on a counter. Bottom fell off and whoosh. Nothing by comparison to your loss.

Wow, that’s awful. My sympathies. I don’t have any broken bottle stories but I lost about 15 Riedels in one incredible sounding storage shelf collapse.

The first time I read this I thought you were selling these 4 cases to an offsite storage place. Then I realized you’re selling the house. That really sucks, especially the older wines.

My worst broken bottle accident was a 2009 Charmes Chambertin that fell, right when I was putting the last case back in the cellar after about 2 hours of reorganizing.

Back when I first started collecting wine I stored bottles on flimsy plastic racks in the crawl space in my basement. I would reach down through a hole to grab a bottle. One time my hand slipped and everything came crashing down and broke into a million pieces. That’s when I realized I needed a wine fridge.

Yeah, four cases fell out. Somehow about 8 bottles from them didn’t break but got beat up.

Yeah, selling the house. Keeping the wine.

Ouch! 96 Salon alone may have won this exercise. Sorry to hear, but good to see you taking it in stride.

The thing is that 96 Salon can be replaced in minutes I imagine as long as Im willing to pay what is asked. The older swans could conceivably have been the last ones in the world for particular vintages.

Dont get me wrong, Im sad, but its just a terrible waste of energy to get too worked up over stuff I can not control. Plus its always cathartic to complain on social media.

Not nearly as bad as your experience.
Back in the days when you could carry on bottles on airlines, I put down a bag with half a dozen bottles of Trimbach wines. This was in the Frankfurt Airport. There was a “crack” and then the delicious aromas of Riesling. People around me were commenting on how great the aromatics were! I was worried it was from some rare Clos Ste. Hune, but it turned out to be a single recent Frederic Emile VT.

I’m so sorry to hear of your loss…that’s painful on a level that is hard to put to words. The worst losses I have are mostly just corked wines…which sadly we all too often see as part of the cost. The single largest loss I’ve had was a 1990 Biondi Santi Reserva Brunello. They’re selling them for €1,550/bottle at the winery…but that’s nothing compared to the loss you shared.

Maybe we should create an offline to make-up for some of the losses?