We’ve been working on rounding out our cellar with older wines by buying on the secondary market. I opened one of these - a 2004 Quilceda Creek - and it was horribly corked.
The retailer’s (Flickinger in Chicago) T&C’s indicate they won’t remedy this. I’ve sent them an email to see how they’ll respond. I looked up Benchmark’s policies, as they often proclaim a ‘provenance guarantee’ and other customer-friendly policies. Their fine print was elusive, claiming they guarantee wine in ‘excellent condition’, but later stipulates they can’t accept any bottle that’s been opened. So, apparently the guarantee covers bottle/capsule/label issues, fill or obvious color indications that the wine is less than what they described.
What experiences have you had, and are there retailers you’ve found that will remedy, to at least some extent, issues that are only found once the bottle is opened?
We did buy two of the QC '04 and I opened the second. Happily, it was not corked, showed some remarkable benefits of aging, with stewed fruits and an almost-Amarone savoriness. Finish was a bit short, and I think it’s in the ‘drink now’ category. Thanks in advance!
I buy a fair amount of older wine either at auction or at retail from companies like Flickinger that handle the sale of cellars. I believe you have to treat “corked” versus “poor handling” completely separately.
The provenance guarantees you’re looking at or looking for from sellers are fine, as to me that’s looking at them checking to make sure the owner they’re buying from has stored the wine under great conditions, and that the owner can show that they bought it from someone that stored under great conditions. The seller you’re buying from should warranty this, IMHO.
“Corked” is different. Corked wine originates in the winery. Wines that have been stored in ideal conditions can be corked if they left the winery with bad corks or bad cellars that cause the TCA. In this case, I view that as caveat emptor, unless you’re buying from a retailer that bought the wine new from the producer. But that rarely happens with older wines.
Thanks John. I understand the issues and agree. No way to know if a wine is going to be corked, other than reports from other drinkers for a particular winery and vintage, and the general thinking that TCA is being addressed more proactively in recent years.
Good secondary market sellers will offer some kind of credit towards your next purchase. It’s an unfortunate reality in the wine world, so it’s only fair both buyer and seller should share in the cost.
This brings up something that I think is important.
As a long time retailer that has worked for companies with fairly easy return policies, I’ve seen a good number of bottles (and the worst part is, largely very expensive bottles) come back that the client said it was corked, and there was literally nothing wrong with the wine.
Just so you know where some of this policy could also be coming from.
The only retailer who has ever credited an older corked bottle was Chamber Street.
Personally I have never asked, nor would I expect a retailer to make me whole. A corked wine is not foreseeable, and the retailer was not at fault selling it to you, so not sure why he should be expected to take the hit.
Flickinger is a decent very well run outfit ; I do hope you weren’t planning to hurt their business by naming them in a public forum.
If you bought a TV and turned it on and it didn’t work. Would you return it? The retailer had no inkling it wouldn’t work being brand new in a box. Why would a bottle of faulty wine be any different? put a bad power supply in the TV, put a bad cork in the wine.
A new TV that doesn’t work goes back to the manufacturer, and the retailer who sold it would not lose a thing. More importantly, a manufacturer should have known there was potentially a problem and should have routinely tested it before sending it off to the retailer; he will clearly be responsible for footing the bill.
A corked bottle is not foreseeable; unless it is a current release, the retailer would not have not have any redress with importer, distributor, or winery, and unlike the TV shop, and is now being asked to eat the cost of something he clearly has no control over.
I didn’t know a subject like this could get heated. Oh yeah, it’s the internet.
I’ll respect the decision if they don’t offer a remedy. It’s not anything a buyer can detect, and for experienced wine people, we know it’s part of the deal. Perhaps they see a longer term benefit for issuing some sort of credit or something, but I’m still waiting to hear from them.
I’ve had some luck returning corked wines to the producer (only in the US, and both times well-regarded wineries), but typically I just eat the loss myself. The benefit of contacting the winery, even if they aren’t willing to do anything about it, is that they are getting feedback on their choice of closure.
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