What percentage of corked bottles bought at retail or direct from a winery do you attempt to return?
75-100%
50-75%
25-50%
5-25%
0-5%
0voters
What percentage of the corked bottles you buy at retail or direct do you attempt to return? Please exclude from your percentages wines that you buy at a restaurant or bar, or wines you buy at auctions or private sales. Just wines that you buy from wineries and at retail.
I’m curious how actively and regularly WBers do this. Frankly, I rarely ever do it, I just sort of chalk it up to the way things go and open something else. Plus, I age most of my wines for multiple years, and I don’t want to archive a file cabinet full of receipts and invoices so I can find who should replace that bottle I bought in 2007.
But I respect those of you who do it – you have every right to. Plus I fully acknowledge that lazy SOBs like me only help the wine industry turn a blind eye to the problem of corked wines.
In addition to answering the poll, please break it down further. Do you often return wines when you purchase direct from a winery, or maybe more just when you purchase from a winery of whose you are a regular wine club / mailing list buyer? Are you less likely to return wines purchased at retail than from a winery? Do you often return wines to your local shop that you frequent in person, but maybe rarely or never do it with wines you purchased online that were shipped to you? Do you mostly return corked wines you purchased recently, or do you also regularly return wines you purchased many years or even decades ago?
Thanks for taking time to answer the poll and, better still, to explain what are the circumstances where you are more or less likely to return corked wines.
Good poll. I just had a corked Burgundy, bought from a local retailer. 2009 vintage, so bought fairly recently. Not a cheap bottle, but I didn’t even think about taking it back, left the bottle behind at the restaurant (was a group dinner, and all of us poured some into our glasses to check it, so bottle was less than half full). Maybe I should have kept it and taken it back, I just figure it’s the cost of being wine geek
Per the other thread, I was thinking this would make a good one as well. Fortunately, I have not gotten too many corked bottles.
Not too terribly long ago I ordered a bottle at a restaurant of a wine I had before. It was “off” and I told the waiter. They happily brought me another.
Once I bought a bottle from Binny’s. Within a day or two I opened it. Gads! What a hot mess. I took it back, and they happily let me pull another from the shelf.
About a week ago I went to a BYOB here in Chicago and took a 2005 Pinot from Sonoma. Had high hopes for it. Waiter opened the bottle, both my wife and I tasted, and we were very disappointed. Let the waiter taste, and he was unimpressed. Decided to give it some time and air - in fact, he brought us a decanter. The wine finally just fell apart. Was it bad? Corked? Tainted? Over the hill? I suspect the later. I just chalked it up to the fact I should have drank it sooner. I had stored the bottle properly, but the cork broke when the waiter opened the bottle (and he knows how to open wine). But there was no sign of leakage, and otherwise the cork looked fine. No wet dog smell. Just - well - nothing - there was nothing to the wine anymore. I sent the bottle away and opened a backup bottle.
If I buy direct from the winery, I sometimes email them to let them know (I voted 50% - 75%, although I am closer to 50%). They are very good about setting aside a replacement bottle for me to pick up. I don’t like to ask them to ship since I live by most of the wineries from which I purchase. This is a rare situation. Once a year maybe. edit this goes for wine that is around $40/bottle or higher. If it is in the $20 range, I just chalk it up to bad luck and move on.
If I get an email about a corked bottle, I always send a replacement. If the same person has several corked bottles, I would ask for some sort of sample to verify. This hasn’t happened yet. In my experience so far, people seem to know what a corked wine is and try not to take advantage of a consumer-friendly policy.
I’ll take it back if it is a recent purchase from a retailer I frequent. Among other things, this is a good “test” of a retailer’s business practices. I have yet to take something back that I have cellared for any significant period of time. I am also less likely to return something if it was old when I bought it.
I also have never returned something I had shipped to me but that is mainly because I haven’t had a corked bottle of a recent purchase that was shipped (if it was an expensive wine in such a situation, I might well return it). Most of what I buy long distance is wine I intend to lay down.
Exactly one bottle in about 25 years. If you count those rejected at restaurants then it jumps to 5 bottles but every corked bottle I have had at a restaurant has for some reason been in Florida.
I was going to say never. I treat it as a risk of buying wine. I rarely open a bottle shortly after I buy it, usually waiting months or years. In that time I think the risk shifts to me.
There have been two times, however, that I bought a bottle when staying in South Jersey to bring to a BYO that night in which the bottle was corked. Since I had bought a case, I had alternatives for dinner, but since the store was on the way back to the hotel, I stopped in and returned the bottle. Exchanged without any question, and that’s one of the reasons I keep buying from them.
Hardly ever. Since the inception of WB, the number of times I have asked for a replacement bottle is exceeded by the number of times a winery has contacted me to offer a replacement bottle after reading a note on WB in which I wrote that I thought I had an off bottle.
I rarely come across a corked bottle (or my palate sucks and I can’t tell), but serveral places from which I buy always say that if there is a problem with a bottle to reach out immediately and they’ll take care of things. I haven’t had to do that, but always nice to feel good about a purchase.
I was at a winery one time, and someone pulled the person pouring aside. I overheard him tell the pourer that “this” bottle was tainted. He then gave that person a glass from a good bottle and a glass from the tainted bottle. Then he said, “This is what a bad bottle tastes like. I wanted you to know and learn the difference, and how to taste for a tainted bottle.” He said he did so because there would occasionally be the bad bottle, and he did not want it poured, obviously, to customers. But that there would also be people who would claim a wine was tainted. Nice learning point.
After overhearing this, I asked if he would let me taste to discern the difference. Both of them backed away immediately with this “hell no” look on their face. I was a little irritated that they would not let me do so. I thought it would have been a great learning opp.
We should all become wine retailers, there is a built in client base that accepts the fact that they can get sold a defective product and be okay with not asking for money back.
I have emailed a retailer almost every single time I’ve had a corked wine (I say almost as I’m sure there are 1-2 times where i’ve forgotten to do so). Luckily that’s been less than 5 times where I’ve reached out to a retailer. But when wines are in the three digits, you should want to do something about it. I’ve always kept the cork bottled and always offered to ship/return it to them. Only once have I been told no refund/credit/replacement and that is one retailer I’ve never purchased from again.
It should be the cost of doing business. Supermarkets typically don’t make the goods they sell, but you can still return it to them. Best Buy doesn’t make the electronics they sell, but you can return it to them.
In my mind, when I buy a wine with a cork closure I’m assuming part of the risk that it’s bad. I have had some wineries monitor CT and contact me with offer for replacement on wines I record as corked, and I don’t turn these down, and in fact use the opportunity to send more business their way.
FWIW I think I’m pretty sensitive to TCA. I often get a wet cardboard smell off a wine which everyone else tells me is fine.
Edited to add: restaurants are a different story, since I’m paying them extra to assume 100% of the risk. Those will always get sent back, but it has never happened to me, probably since I rarely order bottles in a restaurant.
A few years ago, a bunch of friends and I were picking the list at the now defunct PS7 in DC. We had a bottle of Meursault that was so nice that we decided to order another. If I hadn’t had a glass of the first, good, bottle, I would never had noticed that the second was slightly off. The somm was a friend of ours, saw our faces, took a whiff, and insisted on replacing it before we could even say anything.
As a consumer, that’s the closest that I’ve ever gotten to sending anything back. As a bartender, I sent several back before they could get to patrons.
I think I’ve returned one. However, I’ve had a few others and haven’t returned (or asked for a refund) the bottle. I’m not sure why as I think I deserve to be credited and normally pursue similar situations outside of wine (erroneous or ridiculous restocking fees, for example).
I’ve never had a corked bottle provided by a restaurant but I would immediately send it back if it happened.
Same here. I think it would be different if I was a loyal customer buying half or more of my wines from the same place, but I buy from all over the place, and thus it feels pretty tight to ask a merchant 4 years after purchase, having bought nothing since, to take my word on the wine being corked (most purchases not being local to me).
However if a merchant hears from a regular/good customer that a bottle wasn’t quite right, then I suspect most would go out of their way to do something for that customer. They generally do value customer loyalty.
