when is a bottle issue an issue?

with the understanding that every bottle of wine is it’s own being, and no bottle will age quite the same as another, and that all bottles run a very small risk of being undrinkable, when does a bottle’s physical condition indicate the bottle might be ruined/spoiled/undrinkable/past salad dressing or marinade quality?

Say I’m looking at wines on winebid, and it has a less than perfect fill level and depressed cork, is that a wine worth taking a chance on? will the wine most likely be equivalent to a bottle of the same bottling with a normal fill level and non-drepressed cork?

What about raised corks? seepage? capsule condition issue?

What can label conditions tell me about storage? is a poor quality label an issue in a bottle that isn’t being kept for resale?

The symptoms you describe are most likely attributed to old wines which are always a gamble because of provenance. The only one which would not be of concern to me would be the label condition which could happen as a result of humidity and condensation.

I don’t buy anything with raised corks or seepage. I’m not concerned about depressed corks or lower fills, to an extent. If the fill seems suspiciously low, I definitely pass, but if the wine is old, a somewhat reduced level is usually no problem, in my experience. Label and capsule don’t matter as long as they’re not stained by seepage from that bottle.

This is nearly identical to my approach. The one “leakage” exception I will sometimes on rare occasion make is with sweet German Riesling, as they are somewhat notorious for being overfilled then subsequently leaking and nonetheless ageing just fine under those conditions.

I’d second what Michael and Doug said. I would just add that levels on older wines can be well below the cork and the wine may be fine.

How risky it is depends on the type of wine and its ability to age. I’ve had old Bordeaux and Barolo (30+ years) with a lot of ullage that were fine and fresh. For example, a 1970 Gruaud Larose with a fill at the bottom of the shoulder, which I bought on a lark, was amazingly fresh two years ago, for instance. Hard to imagine a bottle being any better at almost 50 years. But cabernet and nebbiolo wines have a lot of tannin and acid, which help preserve the wine. I’d be much more cautious buying an old Chateauneuf du Pape in that condition, because grenache is more prone to oxidation.

I wouldn’t worry about capsule or label condition.

It all depends; once I received some wines including a 66 Lynch-Bages whose cork had dropped into the bottle. The only thing on the neck was the lead capsule! I called a friend and we went to dinner to consume the wine that evening. It was quite a hoot when the server pulled out his corkscrew and it was not needed, but in any event the wine was absolutely fresh and delicious and did not seem to suffer overmuch.

So yes beware of bottles that are not in good condition for their age (i.e., five year old bottles with low fills and sunken corks) but prepare to get lucky from time to time.

I had the same thing happen on a 64 Pio Cesare not too long ago. Unfortunately, that wine was spoiled. I suspect that the length of time is paramount there, how long did you have between receipt and opening it? Perhaps the cork dropped during transport?

To the OP, I wouldn’t expect too many bottles with floating corks to show well

I imagine (but have no way of knowing) that the cork dropped in during transport to me and as I noted above I drank it that night.

Ah pardon me for missing that. Good on you for catching it early… I noticed mine about 4 weeks after I stood the bottle up!

(1) Fill level is usually a function of age. The older the bottle, the lower the fill level will/should be. But that happens unevenly, and if I could choose between two bottles of the same 1960s Bordeaux, I’d choose the one with the higher fill level, other factors being roughly equal. Just not so perfectly high that you start suspecting maybe it’s a fake (and then, only among the kinds of wines likely to be faked).

(2) Raised corks and seepage suggest a higher possibility that the wine may be flawed, but there is still a good likelihood they are fine. It basically means you’re taking a higher risk, at hopefully a reduced price, and that’s just your choice whether you want to do that. I would be more inclined to take that kind of risk on Port, German riesling, Sauternes and the like than dry wines. But I think you might be surprised how often dry wines with those conditions are still perfectly good – the odds are just different than one with a perfect cork level and no seepage.

(3) Label conditions obviously don’t affect what’s inside the bottle per se. They do tend to lower the price of the wine, depending on the wine and the type of damage, so you might be getting a better deal, assuming you’re in it for drinking and not for resale. Ironically, things like bin tears and moldy splotches on the label might suggest the wines were stored professionally, so I’m usually cool with seeing those.

Speaking broadly, I’ve bought and opened several hundred older bottles off Winebid in the past, and the overall outcomes were pretty close to being in line with wines I bought on release and stored professionally myself. Wine is pretty hardy, and the odds are pretty good in your favor overall.

It’s my understanding that not all seepage is indicative of a significant problem, particularly when noticed on younger bottles where the producer used higher than typical fills (Leroy comes to mind). But on older botles where seepage would likely indicate a storage concern, I would steer clear.

When twelve steps are needed. Oh, wait, that is the Dryuary thread.

This is mostly repetitive, but I look at it all as an odds game.

First, there’s no “sure thing” either way. The wine in a perfect-looking bottle can still be corked most obviously, but also cooked or otherwise flawed, and the wine in a bottle with numerous physical condition issues can be great.

Thinking of examples from my own cellar, I had a cooling unit drain hose plug up one time, causing nice cool water to drip onto bottles below and then onto the floor. By the time I noticed and figured it all out, several of the labels were permanently water-stained. Obviously the wines inside were totally unaffected (and opening them has borne this out). Likewise with label tears. Particularly with oversize bottles (Huet and especially Turley come to mind), the bottles can be a tight squeeze in some racks or bins and get torn as the bottles are inserted or removed. Again, obviously, this has no effect on the wine.

So generally speaking I pay no attention to label issues. Same with depressed corks which seem not to have any correlation to poor storage.

The others are all odds games. I would “never” buy a bottle where the fill level is half-way down the bottle, but even there I put “never” in quotes because I’d pay $5 for a 1945 Mouton with that fill level if I knew it was genuine. I expect lower fills the older the wine is, so where I’d start lowering my max price depends on the age of the wine, but generally I’d view the age-adjusted fill level as one that might change what I’m willing to pay rather than one where I’d not be willing to pay anything.

Ditto for seepage or raised corks, especially when other evidence points away from abusive storage. For example, riesling or producers known for over-fills as mentioned above. Also, older mags which (or so I’ve often been told) were often hand-filled and thus often over-filled. Likewise, a multi-bottle lot with only one seeper or only one raised cork to me indicates a higher chance that the bottles weren’t all kept in an attic in the summer. So I might avoid a 3 bottle lot where all three have lots of seepage, lower my price on a 3 bottle lot where two have modest seepage, and be willing to bid full price on a 3 bottle lot where one shows very mild seepage and the other two show none.

I also view these issues as cumulative. I’d much sooner overlook a raised cork OR seepage OR a somewhat lower than expected fill level than I would overlook all three on the same bottle, for example.

Thanks Chris, and totally agreed on all points. This is all very accurate.

Here’s a hypothetical: two bottles of 1964 Bordeaux. One shows light signs of seepage, but the fill is base neck. The other has no signs of seepage, but the fill is mid/low shoulder. Which would you be more likely to buy?

My experience is that knowledge of region, producer, and symptom all factor into how red the flag is around these issues. The safe rule is to avoid any issue with label, fill, cork, color, back story, and on and on and on. If you are asking, you realize the fact that buying wine from somewhere other than the original release channel will come with conditions you have to factor into your risk/reward equation.

@jrozes… the first bottle is my preference in your situation. Bordeaux does not tolerate low fills like Burgundy does in my experience.

fred