3 broken, the first was a Bouland bojo in the cellar, terrific smell! The second a Skerk Vitovska on a carpet in the hallway, left a longer lasting aroma. The third was a Grk wine - was driving back from Croatia in a fully packed car, the case of wine slide towards the trunk and when I opened the trunk somewhere in Friuli the case fell on the tarmac. Luckily only one bottle broke but what a mess and managed to get a glass splint stuck in the finger, the type you hardly can find. At the Austrian stop over I was finally able to get it out.
If earthquakes counts then add one more bottle to the count. Had a lovely Reia skin macerated Fruliano on top of a shelf that was shattered to pieces.
So funny this was posted! For the first time ever, I broke a bottle last week. I have a wine wall of racks that are 10 feet tall. I rearrange the bottom wines to the top and vice versa every 6 months and somehow a bottle of Herman Story 419 Days fell 10 feet from the top to the floor. I think it was because those bottles are very short and stocky, so when I placed it on the rack it was barely on the rack, and when put wine on the row under, I just knocked it a bit and it just fell. I was bummed because I wanted to taste the 3 wines he produced in that manner side by side someday, but happy it was only one bottle that fell and not a chain reaction, because it hit a few row of wine on the way down, lol!
As for me breaking wines, I can think of three times off hand. A bottle of Caymus special select 1985 on a street in Manhattan’s Upper East side, a bottle of Heitz Martha’s 1976 which I had bought at a restaurant in Savannah that broke in White Plains airport.
But worst was a magnum of Yquem 1988 in the wine cellar. A horror to clean, nasty decaying smells for months afterwards, and an invasion of fruit flies.
I’ve yet to suffer a splat decant, but did have a bottle of Aubert drop from the top shelf of the fridge to the kitchen floor this week. Only thing damaged was the tile.
Not wine, but I dropped a bottle of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout on a cement floor. It vaporized the bottle. An explosive sticky cloud of glass went everywhere. What a f*cking mess.
I was once down in my previous wine storage area and was moving a magnum of 1953 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande and I set it down a tad too hard…it cracked the base of the bottle in a perfect circle what the bottle ‘shaft’ meets the bottom. I saw it and quickly grabbed the base and flipped the bottle upside down, losing maybe two drops of wine. Then decanted it and quickly set up dinner at Lalime’s in berkely and they let me bring in the decanter.
Also broke a bottle of Grange at the shoulder by clanking another bottle into it. Decanted through a filter and drank it with a buddy.
Dropped a bottle of unrecollected Williams Selyem pinot noir on the floor of my current cellar: it gave the cellar that air of “wine scent” for a long time. My son says it one of his favorite ‘smells.’
We had an epic save. A winemaker’s facility was maxed out in capacity, so had his assistant making some of his wines at another winery. He then came to help bottling. At one point he jumped on the forklift to move a full unwrapped pallet out of the way, trying to be quick…with unfamiliar equipment. It jerked back, so a four high wall of cases was falling over. (For those who don’t know, layers are stacked in a bricking pattern to help protect against this, but you need to be careful if it isn’t wrapped or twined.) Someone about 4 feet away saw it happening and was able to catch the wall leaning out about 30 degrees, with several cases haven fallen down into the gap so he couldn’t push it back up. A couple of us got there, and got those cases out, and a couple off the top and pushed the wall back. (Our standard procedure there was to pallet jack the full pallet out of the way, which takes about ten seconds, but him “being helpful” taking the initiative with the forklift blocked that.)
On the other hand, I know of a high-end winery that had all of a vintage’s (pre-ordered) magnums on a table being waxed. Someone clipped and broke the table with a forklift. Maybe $10,000 of wine lost? That’s an epic oopsie!
Not exactly a dropped bottle, but I bought two bottles of 1994 Opus One ($80 per). We consumed one when my eldest daughter was born in 1999. I cellared the other with the intention of opening it on her 21st birthday. Covid screwed that up, so I opened it on Christmas last year. I put it in a fancy schmancy decanter, and put it on the dining room table.
While setting the table, my daughter knocked over (but didn’t break) the decanter. Wine went all over the table, and I managed to save about a half glass (Yes, I did slurp some of the wine off of the table). My daughter was aghast! Quickly pulled a 2017 JB Neufeld Old Goat, which saved the day.
Believe it or not, an acquaintance dropped a bottle on his granite kitchen countertop and the bottle didn’t break but it took a chip out of the granite.
One night I was down in the cellar rearranging bottles after I’d had a few. I dropped a Beaujolais and decided to break the fall with my right foot. It fell neck down and broke the middle toe on my foot. At least it was a Thivin.
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