I started rearranging my basement cellar area this morning. I stacked as I wanted and was just about finished when I opened the door to a cellar on my workbench sending a whole series of movements which led to about 30 bottles dropping onto the floor and one another. I heard the break and smell the smell and knew something great did not survive and boy was I right. I had a bottle of 2010 Kutch Savoy saved for a group dinner and it did not make it. It smelled AMAZING and I was trying to determine by smell alone what variety had falled and I right away thought it was a great bottle of Aldo Conterno Barolo from 2004 that I was planning on taking on my upcoming cruise. Where I got to the bottom of the pile I had seen it was the Kutch. Woe is me. I am pissed at myself.
On the good front news my cellar smells amazing and should for the next few days.
You didn’t lick it off the floor???
I feel for you. I was rearranging my wine cabinet the other day and a bottle of Caymus SS broke in the top bulk area, raining a waterfall of wine all over the bottles below.
It hit all my CA collectibles (Harlan, SQN, insignia, Myriad Elysian, Scarecrow etc) but managed to avoid all the cheap stuff. Also pissed at myself for stacking the bulk area.
JF
A couple months ago I dropped and shattered my sole bottle of 2013 Rhys Alpine Hillside. Not an easy one to replace.
Yeah, never good I guess. Replacement is dear though, $80 right now. I will wait.
Years ago(1983), when we moved to upstate NY, the movers broke a bottle of 1978 Ch Margaux…Smelled great while I waited for the movers to finish packing up my apartment.
I snapped the neck of a 1934 Pichon Baron a few months ago when a bottle from the top shelf of an overstacked cabinet fell and hit it on the bottom row. Luckily I managed to turn it upright without loosing more than 1/5 of the wine. It was one hell of a Monday night bottle.
As an update and a testament to this board, today I received a bottle of 2010 Kutch Savoy Pinot Noir from generous board member Jason Bray to which I will send him something later this week. I guess I WILL taste this damn wine after all! Thanks Jason!
^ That is awesome. My faith in humanity is (temporarily) restored.
The only bottle that broke on the floor of my cellar was, sadly a 375 of 1989 yquem. No, I am not soliciting a replacement, but I got a chuckle out of my own post. I had 5 more.
My worst breakage was the old Hirsch 23 Bourbon (yes, that one). Puntless bottle bottom snapped right off when I was moving it in a box with some wine. Replacement cost would have been about 10 times what I paid for it. Smelled great. I’ve mentioned it here before. Still not quite over it, almost 14 years later…
I had a similar aromatic experience associated with great loss many years ago, and it also involved pinot.
After a circuit of Europe that included tasting in Bordeaux, the Rhone, Burgundy and Tuscany, I returned to NY with eight bottles in my suitcase, wrapped only in clothes. When I pulled my bag off the carousel at Kennedy, there was a lovely fragrance – sort of strawberries.
“Uh-oh,” I thought. “Smells like red Burgundy.”
Indeed. It was a mature bottle of Latricieres Chambertin.
I love it. Way to go, J Bray.
Knock on wood in advance but in my 20 years cellaring wine I have broken only one bottle of a relatively inexpensive zin when I dropped a case into my crawl space. This is a testament to the toughness of wine bottles and not to my sure handedness as I have dropped and banged many bottles over the years.
Last year I lost a '99 Pousse d’Or 60 Ouvrées I had hand carried home on the plane, back when you could hand carry on the plane.
I think the neighbors know that I curse.
With the exception of the earthquake, I’ve only broken one bottle and it was many years ago. Our driveway has about a 25 degree slant. I’m hauling stuff out for a family get together and putting it in the car. Needed both hands, so I set the bottle of 1976 Silver Oak on the ground, grabbed the other stuff to put it in the car and watched, (in maddening slow motion), the bottle tip and fall downhill, land on the cement and disintegrate in an instant. Since we had drunk all the 1976 except that bottle, we settled for a 1978. Just not the same.
It was meant to be…
I was just at my offsite and pulled the 08’ Rhys Syrah that I posted a note on and in the same box was the kutch, I thought I haven’t had one in a while, why not… I had set it on my counter earlier that day and then read mike’s note… sometimes things are just meant to be…
That’s such a nice gesture, Jason.
But now Mike needs to amend the thread heading.
I broke a magnum of 1988 Yquem. Paid for the 24 hours of a beautiful smell in the cellar with trying to remove the sticky residue and the sour odor when it turned.