Corked carrots are not in my mind germane to this issue, as the cost of carrots is not the same as an expensive bottle of champagne. In addition, I am not motivated by something that might be $2-$3 to get my money back if they were spoiled. I can admit to writing that off as not material. And who knows where they were grown but I know where this bottle came from, and who ‘grew’ it.
Again, regardless of the size of the producer and the ‘who’ of the origin, the way I was brought up and still believe is that if you own something, own it. Take Savart out of this. Whoever the producer is. You’re making a product that has a fail rate and it’s not the customer, nor in my view any of the other stakeholders in the chain, to own that failure.
Your points are spot on, my friend. The ‘challenge’ has always been that producers are ‘weary’ of consumers claiming ‘faulty products’ without proof. Now you and I know that there are many producers who certainly ‘back up’ what they produce and are willing to ‘make right’, even if they are not asked to. And we’ve all heard horror stories of other producers not willing to take ownership of their issues.
TCA should be a simple one to work with, as one can test to see what the actual level is. If the producer ‘does not believe you’, they can, at their expense, always get the bottle and/or cork back from you and test it. And why this does not happen blows me away. If the world were as it should be, they can then go back to their cork supplier, who should make right and refund their money . . .
There are other ‘faults’ that one might also feel could be the responsibility of the producer as well. Let’s take brett, for instance. If a winery chooses to bottle a wine with ‘a little brett’ and does not filter this wine (or nowadays use Velcorin, assuming the levels of brett are ‘treatable’ using it), then they are creating a situation where that wine CAN turn into something that they did not intend it to be. They are ‘hoping’ that provenance, storage and transportation will all work out in a such a way that that wine will not have a ‘bloom’ and become something totally different that what they intended. One could argue that ‘it is not their fault’ should that wine ‘heat up’ during its life, but one could also say that that wine is ‘unstable’.
We as consumers have lived with ‘bottle variation’ as an explanation for bottles that did not live up to our expectations for quite some time - but do we need to? That’s for another thread but is something to consider here.
Frank, it sucks, but my take is that it is a part of life. I always inform the producer when possible. I usually get a positive response. Not always. I also agree, just because they are in France shouldn’t lower expectations of at least a response. I know many US wine makers here on this board would make good on one of their bottles if it were opened in France and was corked. Still, I concider corked wines(sadly) a part of life.
I agree with Mark, the retailer is typically the consumer’s first point of contact for complaints or returns, whether food, clothing, car recalls, electronics, etc., some of which can be significantly more costly than an expensive bottle of wine. Why should wine be different?
One reason is timing. Most product faults are either immediately apparent or there’s a well-defined warranty period. A wine retailer may have fewer options for dealing with return of a years-old purchase. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad idea to start there.
Another reason is that some wineries do sell direct to consumer. A winery purchase would be a good reason to go back directly to the winery.
Ultimately you go where you’re most likely to get satisfaction. In my limited experience that’s been the retailer for wines still in the market. For domestic wines years after the purchase, it’s been the winery. For older imports I’ve not had good luck. I have not tried the distributor, which sounds like a good plan B if the retailer isn’t helpful and the distributor hasn’t changed.
I don’t disagree at all with your disappointment at being ignored by the producer, which reflects poor customer service. But I see that as a separate issue from seeking recourse from the retailer. I don’t understand your reluctance to hold others in the supply chain responsible. A major purpose of the supply chain is to deal with end users so the manufacturer doesn’t have to or where it would be impractical for the manufacturer to do so. The producer’s relationship is with the importer, whose relationship is with the distributor, whose relationship is with the retailer, whose relationship is with you. The retailer is best positioned to get recourse from its distributor, and on up the chain.
Would it make you feel better if you consider that the retailer almost certainly made more profit on the bottle (in real dollars) than did the producer? You paid the most for the bottle and want your cost to be borne by the party who was paid least for the bottle. Working through the chain makes each party responsible for its own cost.
I admit that I view the issue differently when dealing with a smaller domestic producer that has direct to consumer sales, as it is much easier for the producer in that case to directly provide a replacement for the flawed bottle. But to me that is a critical distinction that makes a difference. The greater the distance between you and the producer, including the number of intermediaries, borders, oceans, etc., the less responsibility I put on the producer to directly make me whole even when the issue is clearly the producer’s fault.
I really can’t imagine a scenario where storing a champagne bottle on its side would cause it to be corked. I have done this with many cases over the years and never had a problem one.
As I said, I always try to let the producer (and retailer) know, and always “flaw” and notate a corked wine on CT. To say that something is a ‘part of life’ is not to say that nothing will change. That is proven by this thread and many others. Luckily we have CT, WB et. al. to sound the clarion and alert producers and customers alike to TCA and other flaws. But in the end TCA and other flaws will always be a part of wine life.
As to TCA rates, you are right, many don’t know or care, especially in slightly affected bottles. I have seen many people happilly drink mildly corked (and other flaws) Champagne/Sparkling wine and be none the wiser. Its the tree falls in the forest and doesn’t make a sound proverb. It would be pretty cool to see a flaw rate graph or something like it on CT, but, again, like you say, some people cannot perceive the flaw, some don’t know one defect from another, others have disparate sensitivity rates, not to mention myriad provenance factors…
Frank, I agree with you in principle. But the practical matter is that a small producer, so far away, with little to lose by not responding, is more than likely going to do just that: not respond. Heck, how many times have you emailed a foreign producer with a question, or about visiting, and heard nothing back? For me, that’s probably more likely than not.
This is a small part of a bigger problem: what happens when wines go bad (premox, brett, leakage, e.g.). I’m not aware of any producer who is regularly replacing or refunding for premox’d wines.
The good thing about buying from quality California producers is that we generally have a direct line to them, and they usually stand behind their wines. For non-domestic wines, however, I’ve always just factored in that there will be some (hopefully small) fraction of wines that fail in some way. I wish that weren’t the case - I’d be ecstatic if Jean-Marc Roulot offered to replace the premox’d bottle of 2005 Meursault Perrieres I opened for my 60th bday. But I don’t expect that to happen.
In your opinion, how would you rank the following in order of responsibility to solve the problem:
Cork manufacturer
Winery
Distributor(s)
Retailer
End consumer
If you feel the winery is more responsible for (solving) the problem than is the cork manufacturer, why is that?
If it is about a lack of response, if you aren’t friends with Fred on FB and send him a message on Facebook, the message most likely goes to his “message requests” tab vs. the typical messages list. I consider myself pretty savvy, and still rarely check my msg request tab (it is greyed out, not super visible, I don’t get a notification when a msg arrives there, and the list is usually filled with marriage proposals from exotic locales and lucrative business opportunities from troubled royal family members, and more than a few requests to land helicopters at D&R). If he didn’t respond to the first message of praise, then this, I would give him some benefit of doubt that this is not the best way to reach him. FWIW, with producers in France, I find phone (leaving a msg in French) is the best way to get a response, email (in French) a distant second, and social media a real long shot.
If you’d like a full refund / replacement, the retailer is on the hook to you as you paid them $175 and they were the owners of the product sold. For the retailer, the distributor / importer is on the hook to them for what they paid, and Savart is on the hook to the importer for a credit of probably $50-$70— All while the cork producer- aka the source of the problem, is on the hook to no one.
Thank you Hardy for providing perspective from a vintner point of view.
Let’s assume I opened a bottle of D&R and it was clearly corked. Assume I sent you an email about the issue, seeking some sort of redress. Also, assume that I’m not a VIP, in your DB etc., and just bought it off the shelf while browsing at Domaine L.A.
Would you:
Ask me to send the bottle back so you could “test” it?
Send me a replacement on your dime without the need of me sending it back to you?
Say: “Sorry these things happen sometime” and politely tell me to move on.
Send me back to the retailer and say “you guys work it out”?
Seek some sort of clawback from your cork supplier, if you did wind up sending me a replacement bottle?
Or just eat the cost as the cost of doing business?
I’m particularly interested in what kind of guarantees that cork suppliers are now offering to winemakers. Are they really absolved from responsibility?
To prevent this- in 2014, we began moving away from traditional cork and are 99% on Nomacorc (100% moving forward). So thankfully, we haven’t had many corked bottles in the last few years.
Every interaction is different, but I believe if someone is interested in enough to purchase one of my wines, I should do what I can to make them happy. This has included replacing wines that were not purchased off the mailing list (sucking up the cost of the bottle + shipping), and has at times included asking people if it would be convenient for them to return it to the retailer. Regardless of where the bottle was purchased, I would never ask for a bottle back, tell the customer “sorry”, etc. This can always be worked out.
As far as responsibility from cork suppliers, I can no longer speak to that.
Quite simply the onus should be on the person who sold you the wine and not the producer. They have an importer/wholesaler, hence an arm’s length relationship exists between you and the producer.
We have an importing/retail business here in Australia. If I ever sell a wine that is corked, oxidised or faulty in any way to a client, I make-good, regardless whether I have any recourse from who I purchased from or not. I don’t argue with the client, ask for the bottle back or try and find a third party to help. I have the relationship with my client and I make-good immediately.
As others have said, going back to the point of purchase is best. Having worked for a distributor, some wineries gave us a budget for spoils and samples (as a discount off invoice) to cover these costs. For others we would reach out to the winery for individual spoils and they would credit them (obviously in both cases we made the retailer / restaurant whole.)
Since crown caps work for the bottles before disgorging (when the pressure in the bottle is greatest), there’s no reason they can’t be used for the disgorged final wine. That’s what we do - crown caps on our bubbles
Jeremy, I don’t want an arms-length relationship with the producer, but the opposite. I want to know the producer, support them and be treated like it matters, like Hardy outlined above. Is that hard with France? It is, and I see the reality of maybe not being able to do that given it is so far away but this is why I am spending $$ to go back in 2019, to revisit the places in Champagne where I was in 2018, to follow these producers and hopefully enrich that relationship with as many that will see me again.
Charlie, why do you care whether I buy Savart again or not? What does it matter to you? I will tell you I emailed the Savart website early this AM, as an email address is listed. I am curious to see how they respond.
Graf, I don’t hold anyone in the chain accountable for this issue, other than the producer. They produce and offer the final product and those who move it around have nothing to do with the failure of the cork. So, does that make the cork producer also accountable? For me, yes. But ultimately, if my seat belt on my car doesn’t work, or the AC doesn’t function well, whether my car manufacturer takes that up with the parts provider or not, I don’t care. The car manufacturer makes and completes the final product, and if it fails, they need to make it good to the customer. Me.
As for the retailer, I sent him an email this afternoon and told him to donate what he was going to refund to me to the charity of his choice. This closes the loop for me, and I can be done with the situation. He is not accountable for this issue, this is not his fault. He didn’t make the corks for the bottle, nor bottle it in Champagne and send it into the pipe. He simply took the product and sold it to me.
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