Duckhorn is the embodiment of evil.

WINE TALK
41

How come my people weren’t invited to this? What are you a racist [tease.gif]

42

Sometimes? What have I been missing?

43

Even in Oregon?

44

I guess I understand the premise here . . . . but I think we all need to step back and think about the ‘general wine consumer’. This person usually cannot tell if a wine is corked, thinks ‘brett’ is just ‘earthy’, doesn’t mind ethyl acetate even though the wine truly smells like nail polish remover, could care less if the wine has really high VA, etc.

Should Duckhorn have chosen to declassify the wine? According to those on this board and others, most likely . . . . but what if they did and didn’t tell anyone? Those AV producers who DID tell folks have scored serious brownie points for doing so, but is that the point? What if they did NOT tell folks and just did it . . . .

As far as ‘fault or no fault’, there is no doubt that smoke taint as seen in 2008 is definitely a fault. Of course, it’s a fault that many had no experience with before - including consumers - and one that all of us are still learning more about (like it can show up later in the bottle even if the winemaker thought they had minimized or eradicated it earlier).

Just my $.02 . . .

Cheers.

45

Its about money.

Will say this, unintended smoke , just a little , no bad, but I dont want it in all my wines. The consequence of natures smoke in some of the 08 wines from this area can be too much and a fault.

Just like too much rain or too little of it could be a fault. And over oaked is a fault.

Duckhorn is still good overall. Not evil. Wine is evil. Takes you over!

46

Excellent point that needed to be made, Larry. I know of more than one case where I believe wineries thought a wine was essentially free of smoke taint at bottling only to have it re-appear in bottle later. Few if any in California had any experience in dealing with smoke taint prior to 2008, so lots of methods were tried out, and I’m not sure that anything removed the smoke below the perception threshold on a permanent basis other than blending tainted lots into much larger lots of wine. And for small wineries where that was not possible, the options were severely limited. Then wineries tried a number of ways to sell wines with smoke taint, from not acknowledging that there was any issue with the wine, to selling it at a discount or under a second label, to trying to play up the smoky nature of the wine, to just bulking out tainted wines. No easy choices there. Hopefully there were some lessons learned in all areas.

47

So true Larry. I think Duckhorn did nothing wrong with releasing a smoke tainted wine. They will sell it to people who will love it.

If you want to get into the evils of Goldeneye, just pick up the latest or not so latest issues of the Anderson Valley Advertiser to read about their ‘yeast farts’ which are the cause of global warming, lots of man-made irrigation ponds within inches of needing permits for where they are and what they are for, heavy earth modifications without permission…they ran an entire creek dry and built a water storage basin over a sacred Native American burial ground for crying out loud…But yeah, selling smoke tainted wine is just appalling.

48

I have just spent twenty wholly unproductive minutes surfing the net looking at variants to rubber duckies. Never knew there were so many.

49

And here I thought this thread was going to be about suing small wineries that dare to use the word “duck” in their names…

50

Update…just at a party where someone brought a bottle of this. I can confirm my original impression that Duckhorn is, in fact, the embodiment of evil.

51

Go out, have a cigarette, come back and see if you still think that.

52

Drinking a glass of this is equivalent to smoking a half pack.

53

People in steakhouses might ignorantly think this is a plus.

54

The automobile manufacturer analogy bothers me, a “flaw” with a car and a “flaw” with a wine are not in the same ballpark. The auto analogy implies something like selling the car with no breaks, whereas it would more accurately imply selling a car painted with pink and green polka dots. If somebody likes polka dots they’re gonna buy it. Doesn’t make Duckhorn “evil.” Just don’t buy the wine. That’s what the free market is all about.

just my $0.02

55

Sorry, pure evil. Unequivocal. Satan in duck’s clothing.

56

CRAP. I just got a bottle of the 2009 Goldeneye Anderson Valley. How smokey is this year? Evil bastards.

57

My first duckhorn that I ever had (a merlot) tasted like wet cardboard left in a basement. I never ever bought or tasted another because I thought this was a common flavor profile of theirs. I did not know what a corked bottle was.

So who knows. Maybe smug rep is selling a bunch of one-offs. Maybe folks will hate their overt smoke and never buy again, thinking that is the Duckhorn flavor profile.

58

To hell with smoke…The 05 Duckhorn I had a couple of years ago was so heavy and OTT I thought it was Syrah…that’s evil. [shock.gif]

59

How did I miss this thread the first time!

Nate you rule.

60

Hey, GaryC was in this thread! Maybe it wasn’t really his girl who was smokin’ - it was the wine.