I know I’ve said this on other threads about corked wines, albeit not DRC’s. but one of the things that truly sucks in this situation is that the winery ultimately takes the blame for a faulty product - and the cork company never seems to be responsible . . . .
Cheers.
I agree.
Of course, according to the industry and “independent” research, isn’t there only something like a 0.001% incidence of cork taint these days? (I’m exaggerating, but they do twist the facts.)
OK. I overheard this at the wine shop last weekend–2 out of 3 magnums of DRC corked at a recent wine spectator event, and DRC present (I remember la Tache, but not sure). I don’t pay much attention to DRC, but is anyone else aware of this? If not, I’ll get more details.
True enough, although the winery ultimately makes the choice of the closure though…
you are not alone. There are many stories, mine included, of badly corked 85 Jayer Ech.
alan
It was the Romanée-Conti, not La Tâche. The following year, the Montrachet was corked. The two most expensive wines they make. Luck of the draw. Fortunately (knock on wood), those were the last two corked DRCs that I’ve experienced, there or elsewhere.
I have had pretty good luck with DRC. A friend told me that a cork manufacturer can check individual cork for TCA taint albeit bring up the unit cost.
Kevin,
The Cork Council of America regularly runs test corks through a GCMS to look for signs of TCA - this is done in very small quantities and from what I’ve read, is NOT done for individual wineries. In addition, even if this was done, it is done systematically on random corks within a batch of hundreds or thousands, not on each cork within a bale.
Would love to hear if someone has other information on this, but from what I continue to see, it simply is ‘buyer beware’ on the side of the wineries with zero recourse should any TCA issues arise later down the line.
Cheers.
Sorry to keep harping on it, but I keep coming back to the same problem; a wine from a great producer may cost several thousand dollars and there is a flaw in the production; the domaine that made the wine has absolutely no responsibility and the person who bought it bears all the cost.
It might be interesting to see what would happen if you went to small claims court to recover the money.
Isn’t your claim against the retailer? Can you make claims against French companies or businesses in the US small claims courts?
Brent, I read that as saying that in NY it needs to be returned to the wholesaler within a reasonable time from the date it was returned to the retailer by the customer. No limit as to how long a consumer has to return the defective product (i.e. corked bottle) to the retailer, so yes, the onus may be on the retailer.
If the legislature wanted to put a stipulation about the time from the purchase by the retailer, it would be a simple matter to stipulate a time period from the date of the invoice by the manufacturer or wholesaler, say 30 days. Last time I checked, the wholesaler isn’t in a legal position to interpret laws, especially when they do it to their own benefit.
Mark,
I have no issues with your statement, however the supply chain here in the US definitely plays ‘hot potato’ with it. To Russell’s point of making the claim to the retailer, why should the retailer get stuck with a $3500 bottle of corked DRC if the importer and the winery are clearly unwilling to make good? Also, what if the bottle is bought at auction or a private sale? Do auction houses offer credit for bad bottles? In the case of a private sale, the claim may be directly with the importer or Domaine. Do European consumers drive up to the domaine and shove their corked bottles of DRC into Aubert de Villaine’s hand demanding a refund or exchange? I don’t say this because I’m trying to be retail-protectionist, but becuase there is an obvious resistance to take any responsiblity for replacement from the top down.
Chuck,
If I tried getting a credit from a supplier for a bottle of 1997 wine bought 10+ years ago which was just returned to me as corked, every single one would laugh in my face.
Brent, UK law is pretty clear (as far as I know), that isn’t to say the retailer has no claim further up the chain.
I’m surprised the US is ambiguous on this area of consumer rights.
As a rule, we always replace corked bottles for consumers. We have even, at times, solicited consumers who post on various sites offering to replace the bottles. To me, this is a cost of doing business as a winery. I say all the time a winery is a restaurant in slow motion. If you were in a restaurant and the steak was awful, you would send it back. Any great restaurant would honor this and either replace the entree or make something new. The only difference in the situation is the length of time between consumer purchase and consumption. TCA, whether from a cork, barrel, drain etc is a faulty part in the product and is the responsibility of the manufacturer to replace, imo. Unfortunately, with our product, we can’t replace a part, you have to replace the entire product, which is often expensive. But the winery business is a hospitality business. Its a mistake to run customer service like a restaurant with a nasty front door host, thinking they can abuse customers because they are packed and will always be packed. We try to model the Danny Meyer experience. We aren’t always successful, but its always forefront in our minds.
One thing we have noticed about corks. We use printed corks for all our bottlings. from what I see in the tasting room, I would say we actually have a below average level of corked bottles. I’m really pleased with our cork company with our printed corks. But, we also buy bags of non printed corks for various trial bottlings that never get sold. Supposedly, these are the exact same corks. In these bottlings, we see a much higher than average level of TCA infection. I’m not sure if its a conspiracy, but its very strange.
Nice to hear that input, Greg. The local wineries that I know actually all seem to want to hear about corked bottles (how else do you find out what’s going on?). The biggest problem the wineries have is folks who don’t know what they are doing complaining about a flaw–the wineries don’t know if there is actually a problem or not. (getting the actual bottle helps here if possible.)
Perhaps this is a misconception, but overseas, I don’t get the feeling that they want to know. and the chain of getting information back to the winery is indirect. Frankly, I’d love to be able to just send informative emails (eg " FYI–I’ve had 6 bottles of your 2004 Xwine, and 3 of the six bottles have been corked")
Ditto.
Wouldn’t replace a bottle of La Tache for me a few years ago…
ouch Seriously, my only bottle of La Tache is a 96. ![[barf1.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/3/3bc5658c317a0577c61d52d4162027a79254f7e3.gif "barf1"){kind=small}